


i'm stuck right here on you (got nowhere else to be)

by zambonied



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: (dex doesn't fish for lobsters), (good natured chirping tho!), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Friends to Lovers, Horseback Riding, M/M, Mutual Pining, Nursey Goes To Maine, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, a Lot of chirping (especially from dex's brother), patrice bergeron the family dog
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:41:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26455834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zambonied/pseuds/zambonied
Summary: Derek walked right into a cardboard cutout of a middle-aged man with skin almost as pale as Will but with dark brown hair and a beard to match. It almost toppled over with Derek following behind, but he caught himself and the cutout with minimal flailing. “Shit,” he cursed under his breath.“Nursey?”He wasnotprepared for the sight in front of him once he spun around.First, Derek had to get up at seven in the morning, then he drove for seven hours, with half an hour breaks every three hours. He was tired, he was hungry, and nowthis.Or: the one in which Derek Nurse drives up to Maine to visit Dex, Dex turns out to be full of surprises, and Chowder is in the prime spot to watch his best friends pine for each other in real time.
Relationships: Derek "Nursey" Nurse/William "Dex" Poindexter
Comments: 46
Kudos: 285





	i'm stuck right here on you (got nowhere else to be)

**Author's Note:**

> what do you do if your horse phase comes back full force during early quarantine? you play old ds horse games and write a fic for six months (i made a floor plan for the poindexter home at some point)!  
> (the wip title for this google doc was "just like them horses" because i'm hilarious)
> 
> biggest thanks to [mandy](https://mvndy.tumblr.com/) for proof-reading and literally keeping me sane!
> 
> title from melancholyism. by super whatevr

Derek loved New York, he really did. 

The thing was just that it could be incredibly lonely, too, if you didn’t have the right people to share it with. It was so easy to drown in the crowd, to become a ghost no one noticed wandering the streets.

As a result, he didn’t exactly look forward to going home for his months long summer break. His moms had to go on a business trip or another and wouldn’t be home for much more than a week or so. That meant the Nurse family vacation—which Derek still happily went on, thank you very much—wouldn’t happen. All he could expect was a week of seeing his parents and then being by himself in their Manhattan Brownstone until he could return to Samwell. A bleak future, really.

Derek sighed and leaned back on their probably toxic couch. The Frogs were in the middle of their last movie marathon before they all had to part ways for the summer—their  _ last _ summer. They had just finished Jaws—Chowder’s pick—and Will was about to put in Spirited Away, as requested by Derek.

“What’re you guys doing over the summer?” Chowder asked as he grabbed a handful of popcorn.

“I’m gonna work, I think,” Will replied on his way back to his seat on the couch, “My uncle asked if I could help him out again this year.” He got comfortable again and stole some popcorn right out of Chowder’s hand. “What about you?”

“Cait’s visiting me for a while, then I’m going to visit her.” Chowder looked incredibly excited whenever he told anyone about his girlfriend, and not even the inevitable fines could keep him from gushing about her. Derek couldn’t quite help but feel a little jealous every time.

“What’s your summer gonna be like?” Will asked, eyes not leaving the TV, but frowning at him regardless. Derek distinctly remembered Will complaining about Derek’s movie choice. “What does one do in Manhattan, Nurse?”

“Well, I’m not gonna do much, actually,” Derek said before taking the almost empty bowl of popcorn from Chowder. “My parents are only around for, like, the first week. And all my friends from home are busy with internships or whatever.” Derek hadn’t been close to any of them since he left for Andover, but the others didn’t need to know that. “It’s chill,” he added around a mouthful of popcorn.

They continued to watch the movie in silence for a minute before Will spoke up again, “So, what, you’re gonna be all alone until we come back?” Derek was surprised at the gentleness in his voice, even though he really didn’t have a reason to be anymore. Their fighting turned into bantering a few weeks into the second half of their sophomore year. Now it sounded like Will was upset.

“Nah, New York has a shit ton of rats to keep me company, Dexy.” Derek put on a reassuring grin and swallowed the thoughts of his impending loneliness along with more popcorn.

Chowder pressed his side into Derek and slung his arm around his shoulder in a comforting hug. “New York rats are disgusting, Nursey.” Chowder squeezed his side and Derek leaned into him. “You can always come to California. Well, when Cait isn’t there. You do  _ not _ want to be around for that.”

Derek laughed. “Alright, thanks, C.”

“Well, Maine is always an option, too. No gross PDA to scar you for life there either,” Will offered, looking at the both of them now and Chowder pulled Will into the hug as well.

“Yeah, we’ll see,” Derek smiled at them. “Thanks, I appreciate it.”

Chowder returned his arms to his sides and they brought their focus back to the movie. Derek really  _ did _ appreciate it, appreciated  _ them. _

* * *

When Derek woke up the next morning he was still cramped on the couch, his head resting on Chowder’s side, who was resting against Will. Derek sat up straight, cracked his neck and stretched his limbs. His back and neck hurt like hell, but that’s what he got for falling asleep on this couch of all places, really. He could only imagine how much Will would be hurting when he woke up, his legs crossed and his torso hanging off the edge of the couch with an arm around Chowder. Despite his uncomfortable position, Will looked peaceful, all of his stress nowhere to be seen. 

Derek allowed himself a soft smile at the scene before he stood up and went to the kitchen to make coffee—one black for Will with a splash of milk that he refused to admit that he liked and one with practically half a bottle of creamer for himself—as well as a tea for Chowder and pancakes. 

* * *

Derek was the last one to leave the Haus. Chowder had left shortly after finishing their breakfast to get to the airport with Will following an hour later after he helped Derek clean up the mess of their movie night. They hugged goodbye and exchanged a quick  _ drive safe. _

And with that, Derek was left on his own.

He took a shower, packed his bags with all the things he deemed necessary for the summer, and called a Lyft to the train station.

* * *

The first thing he heard when he entered his house was his name.

“Derek, baby, is that you?” His mom came down the stairs. He noticed that she was still wearing her suit so it was safe to assume that she must have come home not long before him.

“Hey, mom,” Derek replied with a fond smile on his face, “I’m home.”

He barely had time to drop his bags before he was wrapped in his mom’s arms. He had missed her hugs. She was almost a foot shorter than him, but her hugs were even better than Chowder’s. She squeezed him tightly one more time before letting go. “Ma’s going to be home in an hour or so. She’s bringing dinner.”

“Chill.” She poured both of them a cup of tea. “How was work?”

She started to tell him all about the big case she was working on at the moment. He was used to it that his mom was a successful lawyer and traveled a lot, but he still—maybe selfishly—wished they could make an exception during the summers. She went on about the recent developments when his phone vibrated in his pocket. He knew she wouldn’t mind if he checked it since she knew Derek didn’t understand much about what she was talking about anyway. Sometimes she just needed to talk about it out loud to fix a problem she ran into, like he had seen Will do with a rubber duck when his code wasn’t working like it was supposed to.

Derek saw that he had two new messages in the Frog group chat. He smiled when he read that both Will and Chowder made it home safely and sent his own confirmation of having made it home in one piece before he turned his attention back to the conversation.

She smiled warmly at him. “What about you, though? How’s school? Have you met anyone?”

_“ Mom,_” Derek whined. He should have seen this question coming. He sunk a little deeper into the chair as his mother’s smile turned into a smirk. “No, I have _not_ met anyone. Hockey keeps me _very_ busy.”

She leveled him with a look Derek knew meant she was trying to see through his facade. He took a long sip of his tea trying to seem nonchalant, but she was his mom, she knew him. Before she could call him out on it, though, the front door opened and his ma came into the kitchen with takeout bags in her hands a few seconds later. Her tie was loose and her hair messier than he’d seen it in a long time.

“Derek, honey, welcome home,” she said warmly and pressed a kiss to his temple before moving past him to kiss her wife in greeting. “And hello to you too.”

HIs moms moved around each other with ease.They knew each other so intimately, from the other’s coffee order to whatever the other needed in any given moment. They made each other laugh over seemingly everything. Whenever they were apart for work, it seemed like no time had passed when they both got home again. To Derek, that was the definition of love. Part of the reason why he hadn’t met anyone at Samwell was that Derek couldn’t quite find a love like the one so evident between his moms.

“Derek  _ met _ someone,” his mother said with a glint in her eyes. 

His ma joined them at the island, sitting next to her wife, and smiled. “Oh! Who is it?”

_“ No one_,” Derek stressed and took the last long sip of his tea.

“Is it that Will kid?” His ma asked excitedly as she looked between the both of them.

Derek almost choked on his tea.

The other part of the reason why he hadn’t met anyone at Samwell was that his romantic daydreams—and sometimes the nightly ones as well—started to take on the very familiar shape of freckles, hazel eyes, broad shoulders, ginger hair, rough hands, tentative smiles. 

“So I was right!” his ma exclaimed.

“I am  _ leaving _ this conversation,” Derek got up and went to put his empty cup into the dishwasher.

“Aw, baby, tell us more about him!” his mom tried.

“He’s your defense partner, right?” his ma added.

“I can’t hear you!” Derek fled the kitchen, picked up his bag from the foyer and hurried to take the stairs up to his room before his moms could grill him any further.

* * *

The week—which  _ actually  _ turned out to be two weeks—that he had with his moms went by way too quickly. They went to a show on Broadway together, to a new art gallery, and got so much takeout he could hear Jack’s disapproving voice in his head reminding him of his meal plan. Of course they didn’t stop asking him about Will either. At one point, Derek admitted defeat and decided to stop trying to swallow his feelings and instead answered every question they threw at him in surprising detail. He was happy, basking in every moment he got to spend with them.

When it came time for his moms to leave again—his ma on a business trip to a company in Illinois she consulted for, his mom on one to her clients in Connecticut—Derek got sad again.

This was the downside of having a pair of successful business women as moms. Derek knew they loved him—they made sure to show him every time they managed to be in the same place together—sometimes it was just hard sharing them with what seemed like the entire world.

They were standing in the foyer of their brownstone, suitcases on either side of them.

“Be good, baby,” his mom said as she hugged him tightly, and he squeezed her right back.

He let go of her to wrap his arms around his ma. Even though she reached higher than his mom, her head still only came up to his shoulders. “I love you, honey.”

“I love you, too,” Derek said to both of them when he pulled back. “Just wish we could spend more time together this summer. We hardly get to anymore.”

“We know, Derek. It really wasn’t planned like this,” she said and squeezed his arm in apology.

“Lucille, we’re gonna be late,” his ma reminded her as she threw Derek an apologetic look.

“Right. We’ll FaceTime, baby!” She promised as they hurried out the door.

The door clicked shut and he was alone again. He hadn’t been in a while. At Samwell, he had been rooming with Will and he hung out with the rest of the team or his classmates almost every day.

He sighed and went into the living room, where he plopped down on the couch and took out his phone to a few irrelevant texts in the SMH group chat but the Frogs group chat was awfully quiet, so Derek pouted and took a selfie that he promptly sent.

the true frogs  
**Today** 3:14 PM  
my moms left  
im home alone now  
dex  
did you booby trap your house?  
i did Not  
also i ain't got nothing on macaulay culkin  
dex  
did you have to google that name?

With no one around to call him out on it, Derek let a grin settle on his face as he sent back a _did You._

Derek locked his phone and sprawled out on the couch. He had gotten up at eight that morning to spend as much time with his moms before their departure as he could, but he had no plans for the rest of the day, so he settled in to take a nap.

* * *

  
  


The first month alone went quite well, actually. 

He finished writing projects he had started at Samwell but couldn’t work on any more when finals hit. He took walks around Central Park and fed the pigeons when he sat on a bench to people-watch. He took pictures of particularly weird looking ones and sent them to their group chat with the caption of who he was reminded of—he sent one of a particularly grumpy looking one that he added a badly drawn backward snapback to and captioned it  _ dex in the wild, _ which provoked a full row of laughing emojis from Chowder and a middle finger emoji from Will. He also sent a picture of two pigeons sharing food crumbs and commented  _ charmer be like, _ to which Chowder announced that he would be sending this to Farmer and Will sent nothing but an eye roll emoji.

Derek started a new poem or two every time he was out for a walk. He updated his Instagram regularly—aesthetic pictures from around New York, selfies of himself enjoying the sun in his narrow backyard, shots of his home-cooked dinners.

He managed to meet up with a few of his friends he had from before Samwell. They went out to brunch and to dinner, but Derek was reminded again that he just didn’t quite  _ click _ with them anymore, not like he had with Chowder and Will. Sure, they were fun and they passed the time, but he didn’t feel like he would want to call any of them if he had any news. He noticed that his definition of friends had changed in his time at Samwell too.

He spent several days rearranging his bookshelves, finishing and redoing it over and over again. 

All in all, Derek would have judged his June to have been a successful one.

* * *

The start of Derek’s second month on his own didn’t go as well.

He decided to go to one of the many Fourth of July parties in New York City on his own with no one to be on unofficial Nursey Patrol. To his credit, it went fairly well; he met new people he knew he’d never see again, danced with them, and watched the fireworks from a safe distance.

He didn’t even get all that drunk, but it was enough so that his foot caught on the stairs and he fell up to his front door at two in the morning, mostly unnoticed by the people passing by on the sidewalk behind him.

Once he was sitting at the island in his kitchen, he snapped a picture of his scraped knee and sent it to the group chat.

Derek put his phone down and stumbled to the sink to get some water. He didn’t expect any replies, he was sure the others were still out; it was only eleven for Chowder anyway. To his surprise, his phone vibrated on the counter multiple times a few seconds later anyway.

Derek smiled. If anyone asked him in the morning, he would blame his next messages on the alcohol he definitely wasn’t feeling that much anymore.

the true frogs  
**Today** 2:05 AM  
fourth of july sux :(  
dex  
jesus, nurse  
this is why we have nursey patrol  
nursey patrol is fun  
even if its a bit embarrassing sometimes  
but it means i get to spend Extra time with you guys  
i miss n love u guys :( september is too far away

He took another sip of his water before switching to his private chat with Will and his smile returned when he scrolled back up a little and reread their messages. They had texted more this past summer than they had the previous three years combined, probably. He had sent him memes he didn’t understand but that reminded him of Will, pictures of anything, really, that reminded him of Will, even sent the occasional pouty selfie. He was glad they stopped fighting, and with the alcohol encouraging him, he started typing again.

dex  
  
**Today** 2:08 AM  
heyyy dex  
  
i just wanted to say that i appreciate u  
  
ur like one of my Best Friends along with chowder  
  
even if i wouldnt have believed it if someone told me this our first year  
  
now look at us. best dmen on the team.  
  


Derek barely managed to down the rest of his water and put his glass into the sink before his phone vibrated again with a text from Will, asking if he wanted to call.

His heartbeat quickened, but instead of replying, Derek tapped the video call icon.

Will must have been waiting for his response because he picked up the call on the first ring and immediately, Derek’s screen was filled with Will’s sleepy face. He wasn’t outside at a party like Derek had expected, instead it seemed like he was sitting on his bed. Judging by Will’s messy hair Derek assumed he must have been lying down prior to the call, and his heart clenched in his chest.

“Yo,” he managed, too quiet.

“Yo,” Will said, matching his volume. He smiled softly for a second before he continued, “How was the party?”

Derek couldn’t help but stare at his mouth for what he hoped wasn’t as long as it felt. “Uh, it was okay, I guess. Didn’t really drink much, to be honest,” he said with a shrug.

Will’s raised an eyebrow. “You scraped your knee, Nursey.”

Derek laughed. “Yeah, well, my shoe got caught on the stairs. You know I’m clumsy:”

“Understatement,” Will said, smile returning.

“Ouch, you wound me, Dex.” He clutched his chest for the dramatics. “So, why aren’t you out?”

Will shifted a little on his bed. “Uh, there isn’t really much going on here. My town’s wicked small.”

Derek noticed that his accent had returned and he wondered if he intentionally hid it at Samwell or if it just went away naturally. “Aw, Dexy.”

“Yeah, well. How’s New York?” Will asked. He probably knew the answer since Derek kept texting him whenever he was bored, so pretty much non-stop.

Derek humored him anyway. “Great. I’ve been real productive. Finished some writing projects, went on some walks. A few days ago, I reorganized my bookshelves, like, three times.”

Will laughed loudly this time and Derek felt proud. Whenever he managed to make Will laugh like _ that _ he felt more accomplished than after finishing a paper early or finding the right words for a poem. Even if that meant faking a trip here and there. “Is there something wrong with your internet or something? What happened to Netflix and shit?”

“I believe it’s called Netflix and  _ chill, _ actually,” Derek teased, making a grinning Will scoff playfully for a second, then he sighed. He spent every night watching a movie or binging a TV show until he fell asleep and was now dangerously close to running out of things to watch. “It feels like I’ve seen everything any streaming service has to offer, dude.”

Will frowned. “That sucks.” It did. It was only early July and Derek was already struggling to find a good way to spend his time. the days already started to bleed together.

“Yeah. Kinda wish my moms weren’t working,” Derek said with a shrug.

It fell quiet between them as Derek watched Will rub his eyes with his free hand. He had looked sleepy at the beginning of the call already and Derek didn’t want to keep him up just because he was lonely.

“I meant what I offered back then, by the way,” Will finally said around a yawn.

Derek tore his eyes away from where they were traveling down Will’s throat toward the exposed collarbone. Derek cursed that Will always wore an oversized t-shirt to bed. “What?”

“I meant it when I said you could come up to Maine,” Will clarified.

“Yeah?” Derek asked. He would be lying if he said he hadn’t _ thought _ about it. About going to visit Will and see him at home, somewhere he would be the most comfortable, the most himself. 

He imagined what it would be like to be with Will in his home. Sleepy mornings in the kitchen over coffee with sleep-mussed hair and a soft smile. Showing Derek around his town and telling him stories with such love and familiarity for the place. In backyards on a summer night as the sun set around a fire talking animatedly about something or another, laughing loudly and unhindered.

“Yeah,” Will confirmed and yawned again. Derek heard it rustle on his end as he shifted, lying back down on his pillow again, then he opened his eyes and looked at Derek intently. “If you want to.”

The thing was that Derek  _ did  _ want to, so he nodded. “I do,” he said, quieter than he had talked before.

Will smiled, satisfied, and Derek’s heart swelled. “Nice.”

“Well, it’s getting late,” Derek hurried, hoping Will was too tired to notice his reaction. ”Let’s talk more about it tomorrow.”

Derek expected Will to grin and tell him it was technically  _ already _ tomorrow, but he didn’t. Instead, he said, “Sounds good. Sleep well.”

“You too,” Derek managed before the call ended.

He sat there in the dark for a while, conversation on replay in his head, Will’s soft looks committed to memory. Derek sighed before he unlocked his phone again and went to Chowder’s chat.

* * *

In the morning, Derek woke up to messages from Chowder.

chowder  
  
**Today** 2:46 AM  
c i am so fucked  
  
**Today** 5:48 AM  
why?? are u ok???  
  
do u wanna call??  
  


Derek glanced at the time. It was well past noon and Derek supposed it must have been around ten on the west coast. He stretched out on the bed and decided it was probably best for everyone involved if he got up and showered first.

  
  


He hardly had the chance to sit down with his cereal bowl and water bottle before the bright grin of Chowder’s caller ID filled his phone screen. He picked up the video call and tried not to dwell on the one from last night.

“Hey, Chowder,” he greeted as he propped up the phone against the flower pot on the island. He didn’t think he could have this conversation on an empty stomach, so he started eating.

“Hey, Nursey,” Chowder beamed, cheery as ever. He looked a little disheveled and Derek judged by the faded Sharks shirt he was wearing that he was still in his pajamas. “What’s up?”

Before he could respond, Chowder moved his phone to fit Farmer into the frame. Her looks matched Chowder, even though her smile was more on the sleepier side. “Hey, Nurse. Do you want me to leave?” 

Derek shook his head and swallowed. “Nah, it’s fine, Hi, Farmer. How’s California?”

Thankfully, both of them told Derek in  _ appropriate _ detail about the things they had been up to and he hummed around his spoonfuls of cereal. He could honestly go on like this. Maybe they would forget about the reason he texted Chowder the night before. Maybe he could blame it on the alcohol he’d had. Maybe he could pretend he didn’t remember what he meant. 

His hopes died, however, when Chowder looked at him and asked, “What about you? How was your Fourth?”

He swallowed the cereal in his mouth. “Uh, it was okay. Would’ve been way better if we could’ve spent it together, though.” Chowder gave him an aww at that and Farmer smiled. “Oh, and then I called Dex.” The smiles on their faces grew looking downright mischievous. “I like Dex. And I thought I could just  _ forget  _ about it. Guess not.”

When he didn’t get a reply, he raised his eyebrows, prompting.

He caught Farmer ramming her elbow into Chowder’s side. “Oh!” he said, trying to seem surprised, but Derek had known him long enough to see right through his act. A glance at Farmer showed him that she didn’t even bother pretending she was shocked. “Really?”

Derek grimaced. “You guys already knew.”

“Kinda,” Chowder replied sheepishly just as Farmer said, “Yeah, pretty much.”

He groaned and dragged his hands down his face.

“Well, walk us through the call,” Farmer offered. She looked genuinely interested. Or maybe she was just nosy.

Derek sighed. “Well, after I texted the group chat, I texted Dex privately. I told him I appreciated him.” The others were quiet, so he continued, “Then he just asked if I wanted to call.”

“And you did,” Chowder continued.

“Yeah,” Derek breathed. “He said I should visit him. Like, at home. In Maine.”

“And that was so kind that you immediately fell in love?” Farmer teased with a grin. 

“I’m not _in love_.” Derek let out an exasperated noise. “He just looked so—” soft, warm, pretty, peaceful, open, “—nice.” He cringed. Good to know any and all eloquence had left his body.

“He looked _nice_ ,” she mocked. He did deserve that one.

Chowder saved him from his embarrassment, though. “And he invited you over.” Over, like it wasn’t a six hour car trip, like he just lived  _ across the street. _ “Well, what’d you say?”

“I, uh, I said I’d like to? But it was, like, half past two in the morning and he was already tired—I’m sure he just called because he felt bad for me—so we said we’d talk about it today, but he hasn’t messaged me yet,” Derek rambled. Then his phone vibrated with a new text. “Fuck, he just texted me.”

“Well, what’d he say?” Chowder urged.

Derek picked his phone up and checked his chat with Will. “It’s about Maine,” he says.

“Oh my God, reply to him.” Farmer said. “We’ll talk later. Keep us updated!”

“Yeah! Good luck, Nursey!” Chowder offered him an encouraging smile. “Love you!”

“Love you, too,” Derek said before hanging up.

Now he had nowhere else to put his attention to avoid this text.

dex  
  
**Today** 1:35 PM  
so, do you still wanna visit?  
**Today** 1:37 PM  
why, did u change ur mind

Derek hoped his chill facade carried over onto text. It had crossed his mind that Will could have not meant it last night. He had been pretty tired. Or maybe Will had woken up that morning and got hit with the regret of having invited Derek up to Maine. Maybe Derek had been kidding himself the past year when he thought they had gotten closer, it happened before with the dib flip. Derek would happily call Will one of his best friends, but now he couldn’t help but wonder if that may have been a one-sided feeling as well.

Before Derek’s brain could go down that path any further, though, his phone vibrated again.

obviously not  
well me neither  
when would be a good time

The next replies didn’t come as quickly as the others, so Derek opted to clean up his bowl and empty his water instead of staring at his phone until the next message arrived.

  
  
  


**Today** 1:45 PM  
how’s next friday? work won’t be as busy then anymore  
but i still have to go in so you’ll probably have to hang out there too  
if you don’t mind, that is. I’m sure falmouth has a lot of other stuff for you to do  
nah thats fine ! next friday sounds great  
sweet  
if we leave at the beginning of august, we can roadtrip to your place and get your shit and get back to the haus a bit early. could use the extra skating tbh

Derek wasn’t sure he was reading this right. Will seemed to assume Derek would be spending the next  _ month _ with him. It wasn’t that Derek had any plans—his parents wouldn’t be back before Labor Day anyway.

**Today** 1:48 PM  
if you were even gonna take your car. i know it’s a long drive. If you don’t wanna drive yourself, we can take mine back too or something  
nah its fine ive been craving a road trip all summer tbh  
so why are you texting me dont you have work  
day off  
do you wanna call?

His phone was ringing with a video call immediately and Derek smiled as he accepted it.

* * *

Driving up to Maine the following Friday meant that Derek had a week to find a gift to bring. He was a good guest and would under  _ no _ circumstances show up empty-handed, especially not if the Poindexters were going to let him spend a  _ month _ in their home, so Derek went from store to store in search of the perfect thing.

Anything tourist-y seemed somehow patronizing.

He debated getting Will a funny rubber duck for his homework, but he figured it would be kind of weird to show up to his house with a rubber duck.

Derek thought wine was a classic and fail-safe choice until he wrecked his brain to find any instance where he had seen Will drink wine. God, what if the Poindexters weren’t wine people? But then again, he and Will were college students who rarely had the _ opportunity _ to drink wine.

He briefly considered getting some tool things, but he didn’t know his way around tools well enough to select anything good and he felt like the presentation would end up being very weird, weirder than the hypothetical rubber duck even.  _ Thanks for letting me stay a month, here are more things for your toolbox. _

Finally, Derek caved and just texted Will.

**Today** 6:34 PM  
dex dude i cannot decide what to bring  
a duck seems silly   
some tourist nyc thing seems Bad  
ive never seen you drink wine so thats probably not a good idea either  
help dexyyyy  
what the fuck? you don’t need to bring anything  
but my parents actually really like red wine

The next day, Derek went out to his favorite winery and got a bottle.

* * *

The day before Derek was set to leave for Maine, he packed and unpacked his hockey bag more times than he could ever admit to anyone. What would he need? What were Maine summers like? Was there a beach? How likely was rain? Should he pack a sweater or was that unnecessary?

Before he could debate what shoes would be appropriate, his phone vibrated and he was pulled out of his spiral by a new text from Will.

**Today** 7:04 PM  
when do you think you’ll get here tomorrow?  
uhhh around 3:30ish?  
nice. that’s when i get off work too.  
are you trying to get me to pick you up ;))  
if you don’t mind… my house is kinda hard to find, even with google maps  
sure thing dexy send me the location

Will sent him the location for his hometown in Cumberland County and Derek couldn’t resist

  
  
  


haha CUMberland county. Nice  
okay nevermind. don’t come  
u love me

Derek decided to just google the weather forecast for Falmouth before he locked his phone again and returned to his bag. He eventually settled on his usual summer clothes and made sure he included the pairs of shorts that made his ass look good.

* * *

When Derek arrived at the address Will had given him, he was surprised to say the least. He hadn’t bothered checking where exactly he would be going; the name of the county had been enough to distract him after all. He checked Will’s text and then the address Google Maps was showing him again. But sure enough, when he parked his car on the side of the road, his phone led him to a stable. For  _ horseback riding. _

He wondered what Will’s job here could possibly be as he made his way onto the huge property. Maybe Will was fixing things around here? Back at the Haus, it was no secret that Will was unmatched with a tool box. He got Betsy running again multiple times, saved everyone’s laundry day by fixing the washing machine _and_ the dryer, stopped the sink from leaking all by himself.

Derek had to admit that he found it fascinating to watch Will. He usually put a snapback on backwards, almost like a pregame superstition. Sticking his tongue out between his lips while he focused. Derek had noticed that the tongue thing wasn’t limited to Will’s repairs either—sometimes he caught him doing it over his coding homework as well, when he was in a flow. If Derek was honest, seeing Will work on various machinery so confidently, knowing his way around almost any tool set in front of him, really did it for him way more than it should. The way the muscles in his hands and arms worked. Thinking about what it would be like to feel it for himself.

Before his train of thought could go anywhere else, though, Derek walked right into a cardboard cutout of a middle-aged man with skin almost as pale as Will but with dark brown hair and a beard to match, promoting the stables. It almost toppled over with Derek following behind, but he caught himself and the cutout with minimal flailing. “Shit,” he cursed under his breath.

He was putting the cutout back the way it had been when he heard hooves approaching behind him. No doubt someone had come to chew him out for messing with the cutout, or worse, kick him off the property.

“Nursey?” 

He was  _ not _ prepared for the sight in front of him once he spun around. 

First, Derek had to get up at seven in the morning, then he drove for seven hours, with half an hour breaks every three hours. He was tired, he was hungry, and now _this_.

In front of him was Will, sitting on a horse like he hadn’t ever done anything else. Derek’s eyes trailed over Will’s arms, exposed by his faded t-shirt, holding the reins loosely in his hands.

“Uh, hi,” Derek said once his eyes had returned to Will’s.

When Will swung himself off the horse with ease and made his way over, Derek noticed that he was wearing special pants, too.  _ Really _ tight-fitting riding pants that did an amazing job of showing off his ass. This was all kinds of unfair.

Will wrapped him in a short hug. “How was the drive?” he asked as he walked back toward the horse.

“Exhausting,” Derek answered once he was walking next to Will. “I brought wine, though.” He watched Will grab the reins again and turn around to look at him with a raised eyebrow. “In the car, I mean. It’s probably mad warm by now, actually.”

“Nursey, you  _ really _ didn’t have to bring anything.”

“I wanted to,” Derek said. “And, like, you’re gonna house me for a month.”

“Yeah, but we do that because we want to,” Will replied, frowning now. “I gotta get her back into her box and change, then we can go home.” He added before walking off in the direction of a long building. Derek would be lying if he said his eyes didn’t glide down again.

Derek walked behind him, and took out his phone to text Chowder.

chowder  
  
**Today** 3:38 PM  
chowder i just showed up at the address dex sent me and its a stable?? did u know he can ride horses????  
and hes wearing the fucking pants too i cant do this

* * *

Derek parked the car on the curb in front of the house Will had pointed out. Derek got out and grabbed the wine and his bag from the backseat and really took it in. This was Will’s childhood home. He grew up there, he celebrated wins and mourned losses there, he came out to his family there, he laughed and he cried and he got angry there. This two-story dark brick house with ivy climbing up and around, a small front yard and white windows probably knew _ all _ of Will. 

“What?” Will asked when he noticed Derek staring at it. “I know it’s not like what you’re—”

“It’s pretty,” Derek cut him off. And it was. It really looked homey and Derek would even go so far as to say that it had personality. Something he couldn’t really say about the brownstone he lived in. Derek looked away from the house and at Will. “Are we gonna go in or what?”

“Right, yeah.” Will went up to the door and put his key into the lock right as someone pulled the door open from the inside.

A woman shorter than them—she was probably around Bitty’s height—and dark brown hair like the man on the cutout Derek had run into earlier greeted them.

“Hello, honey,” She said with a wide smile and went to hug Will. When she pulled back, her eyes landed on Derek. “And you must be Derek.”

“Derek Nurse,” he said and put on his most charming smile as he stretched out his free hand toward her. “I brought wine. As a thank you.”

The woman shook his hand firmly, way firmer than he expected. “I’m Grace, Will’s mom.” She smiled before taking the bottle from him. “That’s sweet of you, Derek, but you really didn’t have to. We’re glad to finally meet you, after hearing so much about you.”

“Alright, can we go inside then?” Will interrupted and pushed inside, Derek and Grace right behind him.

Inside, Will led Derek through the foyer, walls lined with shoes of varying levels of dirtiness, toward the living room. In the middle of the doorway, he stopped dead in his tracks, making Derek crash into him.

“Welcome home, Billy,” greeted a voice from the inside of the room, the grin audible. 

Once Derek stood next to Will, bag still slung over his shoulder, he could see a man around their age, maybe a handful of years older, sitting on the couch. His hair was brown like Will’s mom, with shaved sides and faint curls on top. His nose was a lot like Will’s, albeit it looked like it had been broken a time or two less.

Derek turned toward Will and smirked. “Billy?”

“Shut up, no one’s called me that in _so long_ ,” Will complained and frowned at the man on the couch.

“Yeah, well, you haven’t brought someone home in _so long,_ either, _Billy,_ ” he returned with a smirk to match Derek’s.

“What? I didn’t-we’re not—” Will stammered and Derek noticed his cheeks turning red. He felt his own face heat up, his mind on the verge of spiraling over the implications that sentence could have.

“Chill,” the man said and Derek couldn’t help but laugh. He liked him already.

“Why are you even here?” Will asked, raising his voice just a bit. Derek knew by now that he wasn’t really mad, but rather nervous.

“Wow, love you, too. But if you must know, my girlfriend is unexpectedly busy,” he said and got up. “Since you won’t introduce me,” he made his way over to Derek and reached out his hand, “I’m Charles David Poindexter, just Charlie’s fine, though. I’m that asshole’s big brother.”

Derek shook Charlie’s hand. “I’m Derek Nurse, Billy’s defense partner at Samwell.” 

“Oh, I know. Billy talks a lot about you.” At that, Charlie gave Will a look Derek didn’t know what to do with.

“I hate both of you so much.” Will leveled his brother with a glare. “Derek was supposed to sleep in your room.”

Charlie grinned. “Well, you could sleep on the couch, Billy. Or you could room with me and give Derek your room.” He paused, his grin turning into a smirk. “Or you could pump up that new air mattress we got and never used.”

Will groaned and Derek wondered what the problem was. He thought they had gotten along better this past year, had even roomed together successfully for a whole semester already. Of course he knew Will had his issues with the way Derek sorted his things—or didn’t sort them—on their desk, with his unorthodox way of collecting his laundry, his weird sleeping hours, his general organized chaos. He swallowed his insecurities, the incoming spiral of  _ what ifs _ and put on a smile.

“We can share, Dexy, we’ve done it before.”

“Then that’s settled.” Charlie clapped a hand on both their shoulders. “I’m gonna go grab that air mattress.” With that, he left them in the doorway and went up the stairs.

They stood in silence for a moment too long to be entirely comfortable before Derek cleared his throat. “Look, if you don’t wanna share with me—”

“No, that’s not—” Will started then stopped and sighed. “It’s just that my room isn’t as… as spacious as our room at the Haus.” Will didn’t look at him.

“Oh, well,” Derek said, sliding his free arm over Will’s shoulders and pointedly ignored the way his heart sped up, “I don’t mind cuddlin’ up to ya.”

* * *

“You’re not allowed to chirp me for my room.” Will said seriously as they stood outside his door. There were hockey sticks and pucks and what Derek assumed was his old jersey number cut out of paper and taped to it—indubitably a leftover from his teenage or maybe even childhood years. Derek wasn’t surprised anymore to realize he found this endearing.

“I would never,” he swore.

Will sighed, but pushed his door open and let Derek step in first. 

Once Derek dropped his bag onto the air mattress Charlie had already so kindly set up for him, he couldn’t help but let his eyes wander around the room. Will had been right before; his room wasn’t the biggest, the full size bed and the air mattress took up a lot of the floor space.

The walls were painted a pale yellow, but it was covered by old jerseys, medals, certificates, and pictures. The wall Will’s immaculate desk stood against displayed four jerseys, all of them said _Poindexter_ on them but each was in a different size and had a different number and color scheme. Derek only recognized the red and white one with Will’s current #24.

Over his bed, Derek spotted medals from earlier hockey tournaments, from his mite hockey, middle school, and his high school teams. Derek knew first hand how good Will was at hockey, but seeing all of his past achievements lined up like that was something else.

A poster of Boston Bruins forward Patrice Bergeron hung next to them and Derek threw a smirk over his shoulder at Will. “Bergeron, huh?” 

“He’s a good player. Defensively minded,” Will defended and crossed his arms. “And I thought you agreed to no chirping.”

“That was a mere observation, Dex,” Derek said innocently as he turned his gaze back to the walls.

When he eventually turned around, Will had sat down on his bed and leaned back, propping himself up on his hands behind him; he looked relaxed. Derek allowed himself to take the pose in for a moment before his eyes caught something behind Will’s head. Several pictures were arranged in a neat three-row grid on the wall and he smiled. Of course Will arranged his pictures like that. 

Will’s family took up the upper row. Most of them were shots of him and Charlie; Will trapped in Charlie’s headlock with both of them laughing, both as teenagers at the beach with arms around each other’s shoulders—Charlie giving Will bunny ears in the meantime—and grinning at the camera, Will and Charlie talking animatedly around a campfire with the sun setting behind them.

The row below them held pictures of Will’s friends from Maine. He saw him in his old hockey gear with a few other boys dressed the same with their sticks in front of them. Another one showed Will in a backyard with a girl and a puppy between them. They were both grinning at the camera and it almost felt like the pictures with Charlie in the row above.

“That’s Rachel,” Will supplied. Derek must’ve stared at it longer than the others. “My first girlfriend.”

Derek shifted his attention from the pictures to Will.

Will held eye contact with Derek and continued, “I realized I was gay, like, a month in.” He laughed, “I was freaking out about it, but she was super supportive and we stayed friends well after graduation. I think  _ she _ has a girlfriend now, though. We still talk from time to time.”

Derek grinned down at Will. “Thanks for trusting me with this moment.”

Will laughed out loud. “Oh my God, Nursey, fuck off. I told you guys _two years ago_.”

Derek looked at the row underneath, featuring Samwell. 

He saw a picture of Chowder, Will, and himself, a mess of arms on shoulders and wide grins on the lawn in front of the Haus from last May—the picture that had been Derek’s lockscreen for the longest time. There was one from inside their Faber locker room after what Derek recognized as their first win as Frogs. Next to it hung a picture of Bitty and Will wearing aprons, covered in flour, laughing brighter than Derek had ever seen Will. Another one showed the Haus living room with Shitty, Ransom, Holster, Lardo, and the Frogs piled in front of the TV. Four of them—Shitty, Ransom, Will with his tongue peeking out again, and Lardo—had controllers in their hands. If Derek remembered correctly, this was the last time they ever played Mario Kart together while everyone was still technically a student at Samwell. He noticed, now, the way Holster looked at Ransom in that picture. He wondered if he looked at Will like that and if it was just as obvious.

“Wow,” Derek managed eventually.

“Yeah, well,” Will started, fiddling with the hem of his shirt.

Before either of them could say another thing, a deep voice called an _ I’m home _ from downstairs.

“Well, time to meet my dad,” Will said, and stood up to leave.

* * *

Derek didn’t see the dog coming, really. Most of his attention was used up by trying to not to fall down the narrow stairs, his eyes glued to the steps below him.

Before he could celebrate the fact that he hadn’t made a fool of himself in front of Will’s family, though, he was tackled and knocked back into the stairs, effectively sitting him down on one of the steps, something wet licking over his face and following him even as he tried to pull away. He couldn't help but grin, and the dog’s tongue licked into his mouth immediately.

Will and the deep voice from before called the dog’s name disapprovingly to absolutely no avail at all.

Finally, Will pulled the dog—the golden retriever from the picture in Will’s room, as it turned out—away by its harness. “I’m sorry for Patty’s behavior,” a man Derek assumed to be Will’s dad said apologetically. “I must’ve not tuckered him out enough on our walk.”

“No problem, I love dogs,” Derek said with his most polite smile.

“You should probably clean your face, Nurse,” Will said as he let go of Patty. “I’ll show you to the bathroom.”

It wasn’t hard to find, really. All it took was a sharp right turn at the stairs and then he just had to walk until the end of the hallway. He could have found it on his own easily, but Will went with him anyway.

“Patty’s usually better behaved than this,” Will said, leaning against the doorframe of the bathroom while Derek turned on the faucet. “He just gets really excited over people.”

Derek contemplated his next move as he rinsed his face off, tempted to make a joke out of it— _Not just Patty, I hope_ —paired with a wink, just to see how Will would react, just to see if he could make him turn red again. When he looked up, chin dripping with water, Will immediately handed him a towel. “Patty, huh? Is that short for something?” he asked into the towel.

Will was quiet for a moment. “Yeah, it’s, uh, it’s short for—” He sighed. “It’s short for Patrice.”

“Patrice?” Derek grinned. “ As in Patrice-”

“Yes,” Will cut him off and Derek could spot the beginnings of a blush coloring the tips of his ears. “As in Patrice Bergeron.”

Derek’s grin widened. “I’m seeing a pattern here, Dexy.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Will returned, but his lips started tugging upwards as well when they went back to the others.

“Okay, let’s try again,” the man began and stretched out his hand toward Derek with a warm smile that put him at ease. “I’m Martin, Will’s dad. So nice to finally meet you.” 

Now that he was not buried under a dog and could actually see Martin, Derek noticed the similarities between him and Will. They were both gingers, with similar features even down to the freckles. Martin was probably pushing sixty, his face worn and softened by age, laughter lines especially visible. Derek wondered how much Will would look like this when they reached that age. 

“I’m Derek Nurse,” he said, shaking Martin’s hand, “Thanks so much for letting me stay here.”

“Oh, it’s our pleasure. Will always talks so much about you.”

“Okay, that’s enough,” Will said and Derek saw the blush return. Or maybe it had never left in the first place. “I think I heard mom call for your help from the kitchen,” he ushered his dad away from them before he could protest.

“You talk about me, Billy?” Derek wiggled his eyebrows and hoped it covered up the way his nerves were going haywire again.

“All. The. Fucking. Time,” Charlie said exasperatedly as he came in their direction with Patty right beside him. “It was cute at first, but now it’s just sad.”

“I hate all of you,” Will muttered. When he heard Patty make a sad noise, he crouched down and scratched his head. “Except for you, you’re the best.”

For a moment, Derek let himself picture a future in three, five, ten years from now. He saw Will in the entrance of their shared place, cuddling their dog with the softest expression on his face. The sun was streaming in through the glass of the front door, golden light catching in Will’s hair.

Derek’s bubble burst when Charlie cackled loudly and went into the dining room.

Will stood up and cleared his throat. “I’m really sorry. I hope my family isn’t making you uncomfortable.”

Derek smiled and shrugged. “It’s fine, really. Your family seems fun.”

At that, Will caught his eyes and smiled back. He opened his mouth to say something, but was cut off by Grace calling all of them to dinner.

* * *

Derek actually really enjoyed dinner with the Poindexters, it turned out. He quickly realized they were a talkative family. And curious too. So far, he found out that Charlie was a fisherman and worked on their uncle Eugene’s lobster boat while Grace was a mechanic and had a shop with her brother Robert. Derek had always assumed that there were a lot of Poindexters, but it turned out that all the uncles Will seemed to have were Grace’s brothers. Martin didn’t have any siblings to contribute to Will’s flock of uncles. He taught English at the high school in the next town over where he was currently teaching summer classes.

“I’m an English major,” Derek offered when he mentioned that. When Martin looked interested he continued talking about the fond memories he had of his own English teacher at Andover, who kept encouraging him and saw talent in his writing when hardly anyone else did.

“So you  _ like _ reading then? Where did Will find you?” Martin asked, feigning shock.

“Hey, I’ve read books!” Will defended himself next to Derek.

“Textbooks for class don’t count,” Charlie interjected flatly at the same time Martin said, “After I refused to tell you what your teacher would ask on the test.”

Will huffed and Derek laughed. The mental image he had of sixteen-year-old Will doing his damndest to get out of reading  _ Romeo and Juliet _ or  _ The Catcher in the Rye _ was priceless.

“So, Derek,” Martin turned his entire attention back to him then, “an English major.”

Derek felt the parental  _ something. _ It wasn’t judgement, but his answer to the unspoken question mattered, somehow. 

“Uh, yeah. I find the analysis of a work and its circumstances really fascinating. Like, what influenced the author to write this specific piece at this specific time in their life? And the impact literature has on society is really interesting,” he said, trying to read Martin’s shifting expression. When he was fairly certain he didn’t see any outright disapproval, he added, “And I guess I’m an aspiring writer? Maybe I could work in a publishing house or something if the whole hockey thing doesn’t pan out.” He took a sip of the wine he brought—Grace must have saved it by putting it in the freezer to chill quickly when they arrived—just so he stopped talking.

Martin’s face lit up instantly. “What do you write?”

Derek set his wine glass down and swallowed one last time. “Anything that comes to me, really. I’ve written some short stories and I’m currently gathering ideas for a novel. And now and then I write a poem or two.” Derek was sure his poetry journals would hardly agree with the  _ a poem or two every now and then  _ bit, though.

“Poems!” Martin was practically beaming now. “I used to write my fair share of poems as well. I actually tried to woo the woman of my dreams with poems,” he laughed.

“Well, it obviously worked,” Grace said, smiling behind her own glass of wine.

Derek saw Charlie smirk at Will from across the table and out of his peripheral vision, Derek thought he saw Will frown before he felt him kick Charlie underneath the table. Derek filed this interaction away for in-depth analysis later.

After that, dinner returned to normal, and Derek was able to step out of the spotlight and resume his preferred role of the observer. He watched Will interact so freely and lovingly with his family and his heart ached and he made a mental note to text his moms later.

* * *

Derek had offered his help with the dishes once dinner was over, but Grace had shooed him out of the kitchen before he could even pick up the towel. Will had shown him to the upstairs bathroom to shower before disappearing down again to help the rest of his family clean up.

After, he slipped into a fresh pair of boxers and a tank top—at home he usually slept in just his boxers, but he wasn't about to sleep half naked in the bedroom of his best friend, whom he had actual  _ feelings _ for.

When he returned to Will’s room, he found that Patty had made his way up the stairs and onto the air mattress, stretched out in the middle of it and fast asleep. Derek smiled, took his phone from the nightstand and took a picture of Patty. He sat down on Will’s bed and checked his messages. He had a few from Chowder and Farmer demanding updates, but his attention was caught by the messages his moms had sent into their family chat. 

family nurses  
**Today** 6:24 PM  
mom  
Hey, honey. Hope you got to your friend safely. We love you!  
**Today** 7:55 PM  
i got here fine  
im sorry i didnt get to text earlier it was kinda busy  
i love you guys too

Derek couldn’t stop the grin that crept its way onto his face as he read through the messages he had gotten from Chowder and Farmer since that morning. He saw that they made a new group chat for the three of them titled  _ boy problem. _

Derek popped his back and stretched his shoulders. He couldn’t hear Will come up the stairs, so he dared to lie down on the bed before he started typing.

boy problem  
  
**Today** 7:58 PM  
hey guys im sorry for the radio silence  
where do i even begin  
farmer  
the fucking beginning derek!!!!

So he did. He told them about arriving at the stable, about the surprise to see Will on a horse, about the  _ pleasant _ surprise of Will in those pants, about meeting the Poindexters including Patty, and about the interactions Derek intended to overthink. He skillfully left out the details about his daydream involving a shared house and dog.

**Today** 8:03 PM  
and now im literally In His Bed bc patty has claimed the air mattress

Derek quickly sent the picture before any demands it could arise, then locked his phone and dropped it onto his chest. He’d let the other two get out all their reactions before he’d start reading.

It hit him how much the sheets smelled like Will, and he allowed himself to close his eyes, imagining an early morning or a late night, lying right next to Will, hearing his even breaths, smelling his shampoo, feeling his warmth and weight next to him. The peacefulness made his heart ache, but it dulled as the day’s heaviness pulled him into the depths of sleep.

* * *

Derek woke up to the mattress dipping at his feet. He must have been more exhausted than he realized—not even the buzzing of his phone with the replies from Chowder and Farmer managed to rouse him at all.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you,” Will said from where he sat at the foot of the bed when he noticed Derek blinking at him. He had already changed into what Derek assumed were his sleep clothes—boxers and a loose shirt that may have had the outline of the Red Sox logo a on it a couple hundred washes ago—and Derek wondered how long he was out for. The sun had pretty much disappeared entirely already.

“Didn’t sleep,” Derek protested weakly, words slurred by his sleep-heavy tongue. He closed his eyes again as he stretched. When Will didn’t say anything else—Derek had expected even just a little chirp about how he had clearly been asleep—he opened his eyes again, only to find that Will hadn’t taken his eyes off Derek. His brain was still a bit slow from sleep, and his brain-to-mouth filter hadn’t kicked in yet. “What, Dex? Never had a pretty boy in your bed before?”

Will snorted, got up again, and shook Patty awake. 

“Sorry for passing out on your bed. Your dog kinda claimed the whole air mattress,” Derek added.

“No problem,” Will said as he shooed the dog outside. He closed the door and turned back around. “I don’t mind.”

Derek added the look in Will’s eyes to the pile of things to overanalyze as he quickly got up from WiIl’s bed and dropped down on the air mattress, barely two feet away, lying down on his side to face Will. He was almost asleep again when Will spoke up. He opened his eyes and caught Will’s eyes in the dark.

“I’m glad you came here,” he said quietly. 

“Me too,” Derek replied, and he meant it. He loved New York, but the people he had there weren’t—well, they weren’t  _ Will. _ Or Chowder. Or any of his other Samwell teammates. “Thanks for letting me stay.”

Will was quiet for a long moment before he whispered, “And I haven’t, by the way. Had a pretty boy in this bed, I mean.”

Suddenly, Derek felt a lot more awake than before. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” Will said. “There’s no way I would want to do anything in my childhood bed,” he laughed.

Derek tried his best not to think about what _anything_ entailed. “Lame. Also, I don’t think that’s your childhood bed.”

“Oh my God, Nurse,” Will laughed again and hit Derek with his pillow, which he caught and held onto firmly when Will tried to pull it back onto his bed. Both of them tugged at it for a moment before Derek relented and finally let go. 

“So, I have the weekend off,” Will said as he got settled, stuffing the pillow under his head again.. “I thought we could go to Portland? Or maybe get ice cream somewhere? Hit the beach?”

“Are you asking me out, Dexy?” Derek teased, hoping his voice didn’t betray his racing heart.

“You wish,” Will replied and yeah. Maybe he did.

“Those all sound like great ideas,” Derek yawned. “Let’s talk about those in the morning, alright?”

“Sure,” Will said and turned to lie on his back. “Sleep well, Nursey.”

“Night, Dex.”

* * *

Derek woke up to an empty room and the faint cluttering of pots and pans being pulled from cupboards and dulled chatting of people filtering through the closed door.

Derek rubbed his eyes a few times, then reached for his phone on the nightstand, and saw that it was just past ten and that he had twelve unread messages. One was from his ma, a handful from the official SMH group chat, and the remaining six from Chowder and Farmer. Chowder had sent him  _ a lot _ of exclamation marks, Farmer added about the same amount in winky faces. Derek replied with three eye roll emojis before he stretched, then threw back his thin blanket and got up off the air mattress. Still a little bleary-eyed, he grabbed the pair of Will’s sweatpants thrown over the back of his desk chair and pulled them on. 

He headed downstairs toward the kitchen, but before he could make his way through the dining room, though, Patty spotted him and ran over to greet him. Derek smiled at the dog jumping excitedly in front of him and crouched down to pet him. Patty lay down on his back, wagging his tail and Derek indulged him, rubbing his belly for a moment.

Once he managed to tear away from Patty, he stumbled into the kitchen and quickly realized that willingly getting up early as hell was a family trait.

He spotted Martin at the table, reading over what Derek guessed was an essay from one of his students while Grace was frying eggs and bacon next to where Will was leaning against the counter, the toaster at his back, and Charlie was sitting on the chair next to his dad, newspaper spread out in front of him and coffee in his hand. 

Derek couldn’t help but think of the Haus, how they all worked around each other like a well-oiled machine, always having the best baked goods in probably all of Samwell almost every morning. Derek wondered how these mornings would end up being, now that Bitty graduated and moved out. Would they just stop happening all together? Would Will, as the captain and what had seemed like Bitty’s student, keep the tradition going?

“Mornin’, Nursey,” Will smiled as he turned around and prepared a cup of coffee with an obscene amount of creamer, just like Derek always did when he poured himself a cup of—  _ Oh. _ “Here,” Will said as he shoved the mug—white with a red cartoon crab on it and a  _ Feelin’ a bit crabby _ in a speech bubble—into Derek’s hands.

“Thanks,” Derek said and both Grace and Martin threw him a kind  _ Mornin’. _

“Nice pants,” Charlie commented innocently when his eyes dropped to Derek's legs. He followed Charlie’s gaze and immediately his cheeks heated up ever so slightly. Turned out, the sweatpants he stole from Will very obviously had his number on the left thigh right over the Samwell Hockey logo. Derek’s head snapped up to Will, catching him in the midst of his own—very visible—blush, and he saw Charlie smirk into his coffee.

“Sit down, Derek,” Grace insisted before either of them reacted and waved her spatula toward the table. “Breakfast is gonna be ready in a second.”

Derek took a seat on the bench opposite Charlie, who was still looking at him over his mug. He took a sip of his coffee; it was  _ just _ the way he liked it. The toaster behind Will popped and Grace started plating the eggs.

“Thanks,” Derek repeated as she set a full plate in front of him. Will sat next to him on the bench, Grace grabbed two slices of toasts and put an egg and cheese between them.

“Alright, I have to go to work now,” she went around the table, kissing her husband on the lips and her sons on their foreheads—Will wiped it away a little, frowning, and Charlie didn’t react at all—and patting Derek’s shoulder. She hurried out of the kitchen to the chorus of everyone’s goodbyes.

“So, how’d you sleep?” Charlie asked then, putting jam on his toast. “Did Will’s snorin’ keep you up?”

“Fuck you, I don’t snore,” Will protested and kicked Charlie under the table.

Derek laughed. “You kinda do, though. But I don’t mind it.”  _ Not anymore. _ Derek took a sip of his coffee. “I slept really well, actually, thanks.”

“Glad to hear it,” Charlie smiled as he bit into his breakfast.

“So, weekend plans.” Will cut his toasts into two halves and put different jams on each side. “I was thinkin’ maybe we could hit the beach? We could take Patty, he always gets wicked excited for the beach.” Derek liked Will’s accent, all swallowed  _ gs _ and  _ rs _ seeping through with his voice still a little raspy from sleep. It felt like seeing another part of Will that he didn’t bring back to Samwell. Will raised the half with apricot jam to his mouth but stopped short and frowned. “Did you pack your swim trunks?”

Derek nodded. “The beach sounds ‘swawesome,” Derek said and placed his fried egg between his toast slices like Grace had done.

“Don’t forget the sunscreen,” Charlie smirked, earning him a muttered  _ fuck you _ and another kick from Will.

* * *

It took them until well past lunch to get dressed—they agreed swim trunks with a shirt was the most practical decision, they weren’t really in the mood to be arrested for public indecency—and packed a backpack with water bottles, a bowl for Patty to drink out of, beach towels, and their bottles of sunscreen. Derek sneaked in his journal and pen too. He put on his backwards snapback and a pair of sunglasses, to which Will rolled his eyes, because one of those was  _ sufficient, Nursey, you look like a frat boy. _

The actual walk from Will’s house to the beach wasn’t a long one, maybe twenty minutes, and Will offered him bits and memories here and there about the places they passed by, and Derek soaked up every word.

They found a good spot slightly away from all the tourists and Will let Patty off the leash, set the backpack down, and pulled the beach towels out. He threw one of them at Derek, then spread out the one in his hand. While Derek laid down the towel and sat down, Will went to grab a stick to throw around for Patty.

When he returned, Will stood next to the free towel for a moment. Through his sunglasses, Derek thought he saw a blush creep up on Will’s cheeks, and he wondered just how much of it was from the sun. 

“Sunscreen,” WIll said after he plopped down onto the towel a little forcefully. He grabbed the backpack, rummaged through it until he pulled out the bottles, and passed Derek’s over to him.

They slipped out of their shirts, and Derek focused on coating his exposed skin with enough sunscreen, instead of on Will next to him. He managed fairly well, too, just finishing up his legs, when Will cleared his throat. Derek had to put in real effort to look at his face.

“Can you, uh, help me? With my back, I mean.” Will didn’t meet his gaze, simply handed him the bottle.

“Sure,” Derek replied and took it. Will turned around, his back facing Derek, his head ducked a little.

Derek squeezed some sunscreen onto his hand and took a calming breath. This was nothing, he saw Will almost naked regularly, he could do this. He set the bottle into the sand, warmed the sunscreen in his hands, and spread it on Will’s back. As he moved his hands up and down his sun-warmed skin, he wondered what his freckles would look like after their day on the beach, wondered if they’d get darker, standing out more against Will’s pale skin. Or maybe other ones would become visible, mapping out patterns Derek could only imagine.

When Derek was sure he covered every inch of Will’s back at least twice, he took his hands away. “Done.”

“Thanks,” Will muttered and turned back around to face him. “Do you want me to do yours?”

“If you don’t mind,” Derek smiled and offered him his own bottle from between his thighs. Will took it the second it was offered to him and Derek had to will his heartbeat into something that was in the general vicinity of a normal pulse and turned around.

Derek shuddered slightly when Will put his hands on his back. They were somehow colder than his back had been, but it was a pleasant contrast to his own heated up skin. Derek let his eyes fall shut, and he decided to selfishly enjoy every second of Will’s strong hands wandering over his back with just the right amount of pressure, but it soon started to feel like he was drawing shapes into his skin.

“Are you writing something on my back?” He asked, amused.

Will stopped moving his hands for a second. “Maybe.” He started moving again, now obviously drawing something with just one finger. “Guess what it is.”

“What do I get if I’m right?” Derek grinned at the sand in front of him.

Will took his hands away from his back entirely; thinking about it, Derek assumed. “Your choice. Ready?”

Derek nodded, and Will’s finger returned, drawing a shape consisting of two seemingly symmetrical halves. “A smile?” Derek guessed.

Will didn’t say anything, just huffed and drew again. “Uh, leaves? Like, from a poorly drawn flower?”

“What?” Will asked in disbelief. He sighed and moved his finger again, this time it was just one line. Derek felt two half circles at the top, the bottom a tip. He swallowed. It almost felt like Will was drawing a heart into Derek's back. There was no way that that could have been what he was feeling though, right?

“Uh,” Derek said, his voice shaking slightly. “A, uh, a three? The number three?”

Will sighed again, and Derek wondered if the disappointment he heard in it was really there, or if it was just more wishful thinking. Then Will took his hands off Derek’s back. “Nope.”

“What was it?” Derek asked as Will got up and grabbed Patty’s stick.

“Should’ve guessed better if you wanted to know. I’m not gonna spell everything out for you,” Will said, flashed him a grin that didn’t quite hit the level of teasing Derek guessed he was going for, and left for the ocean with Patty running beside him.

“Fuck you,” Derek called after him with no real heat.

With a sigh, he pulled out the journal and pen he brought along and laid down on his stomach.

He managed to fill almost an entire page with poems about sun-heated skin under hungry hands, sand between toes, and drawing silent confessions onto backs, before Patty ran up to him, shook the ocean water out of his fur and right onto Derek. Will came up behind him and laughed at Derek’s disgusted noise.

“The water’s pretty nice,” Will suggested and looked down at Derek

Derek got up and put his—thankfully dry—journal back into the backpack. He slipped out of his flip flops, put his sunglasses on top and covered them with his hat. “Race you to it, then!” he laughed as he took off toward the waves, Will hot on his heels.

Before he could declare himself the winner with the water knee-deep, Will tackled him further in, both of them going underwater for a moment. When Derek came back up gasping, he heard Will laugh loudly right next to him. “Asshole,” he shoved lightly at his shoulder, “I won fair and square.”

Will grinned at him. “Didn’t say you didn’t.”

Derek grinned back and pushed Will underwater again, the water comfortably cool on his hot skin. 

* * *

They spent the afternoon in and out of the water, taking turns playing with Patty, just laying in the sun, soaking up the heat. Derek may or may not have dozed off once or twice too. Only the realization that the beach had gotten pretty empty and that the time had crept well past six compelled them to pack up their things and head back.

They had been walking in comfortable silence for a while when Derek spoke up. “This was fun.”

“It was,” Will agreed and bumped into Derek’s shoulder, smiling.

* * *

As they shuffled into the house at half past seven—they had taken their time walking back, Patty hadn’t been as eager to run the whole way anymore and the both of them were sleepy from the sun—Will threw him a look he interpreted as  _ shower and then we’ll raid the kitchen. _ Derek was thankful; somehow sand had gotten into areas sand definitely shouldn’t be.

When they finally entered the living room—gratefully sand-free and full—Charlie was on the couch texting with a lopsided smile on his face and he only looked up when Will and Derek joined him.

“You didn’t drown, I see.”

“Dex did try to drown me, though. It was really traumatizing.” Derek joked and clutched his chest dramatically.

Charlie barked out a short amused laugh as Will started to object. “I did  _ not. _ The water was literally knee deep.”

“I still could’ve drowned,” Derek threw back pointedly and Will rolled his eyes, but Derek could see the way his lips started tugging upwards anyway.

“Hey, wanna play Mario Kart?” Will asked a moment later, to which he got a shrug from Charlie and a  _ sure  _ from Derek. 

“You any good at this?” Charlie eyed him while Will was setting up the game, and Derek recognized the challenge in Charlie’s eyes as the one he had seen in Will’s so often before.

“I’m the best at this,” Derek replied confidently and with a triumphant grin. At the Haus, he was the reigning champion. Well, almost. His score  _ was _ tied with Will’s, but Charlie didn’t need to know that.

“Oh, bullshit,” Will protested from next to him again. “We both know that I would have easily beat you last time if Chowder hadn’t accidentally cancelled the race.”

It had been tight, they’d gone into the third of the four races tied, with Chowder finishing almost last both times. Chowder was objectively bad at Mario Kart and everyone knew it, but he enjoyed playing anway, and, well, Derek enjoyed the extra time he got to spend with him. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to be competitive. Derek had been leading with Will right behind him with a red shell already equipped when Chowder accidentally exited out of the race. His apology sounded, to Derek’s ears, a lot more smug than it did remorseful.

“You would  _ not _ have,” Derek insisted, crossing his arms. 

“Wanna bet?” Will asked, a dangerous glint in his eyes.

“Fine,” Derek agreed. “Best out of three races.” For a second he debated what he should ask for once he inevitably won. He could make Will tell him what he had been drawing on his back at the beach, but that felt like dangerous territory to maneuver, especially with Charlie right there. “If I win, you have to write and recite a poem. It  _ must _ be in front of an audience of your choosing, but it has to be more than, like, two people,” he settled on, smirking.

Will hesitated a little. _ "Fine. _ If I win, you have to ride a horse. And I’m allowed to film it.”

Derek huffed a laugh. He had expected worse, like dishwashing duty for two weeks at the Haus or being responsible for taping both their sticks for the entire season. This was nothing. He could ride a horse, easy. Really, how hard could it be to _sit?_ “You’re on, Poindexter:”

They shook hands and Charlie started the race. 

It turned out that Charlie could easily beat both of them, and he didn’t hold back if the strategically placed banana peels and shells were any indicator. The first time Derek watched Charlie’s Dry Bones cross the finish line in first place, he stared in disbelief for a moment too long and Will’s Mario passed his own Daisy, finishing before him.

He cursed but managed to come in before Will in the next race, even taking the first place from Charlie for a round until Will’s blue shell hit him. He protested loudly at that and threw himself against Will’s side in retaliation.

1-1. Alright, he could do this. He could win this, easy. 

The third race turned out to be Rainbow Road and his confidence crumpled. 

“Best out of five,” Derek offered nervously after the race, which he finished almost dead last after falling off the track at nearly every second turn like he feared he would, and Will agreed with a laugh.

Derek won the fourth race, even beating Charlie, but Will beat him on the fifth one again. It was three to two in Will’s favor. Derek sighed and tried bargaining again. “Best out of seven?”

“Nurse, you lost.  _ Twice." _

Derek looked to Charlie desperately, pleading. “Dude, please.”

“Sorry, man, you lost. Guess you gotta ride a horse,” Charlie replied and barked out a laugh, entirely void of any pity or mercy Derek had been hoping for.

“Well,” he started and turned toward Will. “I have no clue how to actually ride a horse.”

Will smirked, and Derek swallowed. “I’ll teach you.”

Oh  _ fuck. _

They ended up playing a few more rounds until it was pushing midnight, and Derek had the feeling that Will scooted a little closer to him after every race, bumping his shoulder every now and then, to throw Derek off his rhythm, surely.

Eventually, Charlie put down his controller and rubbed at his eyes. “Well, I’m out.”

“It’s not even twelve,” Will commented with a raised eyebrow. “You’re so old. Guess that’s why you always pick Dry Bones.”

“I’m twenty-five, Billy,” Charlie replied around a yawn and got up from the couch.

“Yeah, old,” Will repeated and grinned when Charlie flipped him off wordlessly on his way out.

“I’m actually a little tired too,” he admitted quietly when he was sure his brother was out of earshot. “What about you?”

Derek dragged a hand down his face. He felt the heaviness of his body suddenly and shrugged. “Sure, I could sleep.”

Will got up and turned off the TV and console before they went up the stairs silently.

Derek was asleep as soon as his head hit his pillow.

* * *

“So,” Derek started, and turned his head away from the car window he had been looking out of for the past few minutes to look at Will’s profile. “Are you gonna tell me what we’re doing today?”

Will didn’t take his eyes off the road in front of him, just furrowed his brows in familiar concentration. “Goin’ to Portland,” he said in a monotone voice, accent slipping out again.

Derek huffed. He had tried to pry any information about the trip out of Will all day, but Will didn't crack. 

“You’ve said that, like, every time I asked now. At least give me a _hint,_ ” he pleaded.

Will hummed in thought, presumably mulling it over. “You’ll be wicked excited,” he said and grinned. “I hope.”

Derek groaned in frustration. “That doesn’t tell me  anything .”

“Good,” Will said, satisfied, as he pulled into a parking lot. “We’re here anyway.”

Before Derek could ask again where exactly  _ here _ was, Will got out of the car, so he huffed and climbed out after him. They stood in front of a red-brick building with the words  _ Portland Museum of Art _ written above the entrance. Derek opened and closed his mouth once, twice.

“But you’ve never been a fan of art museums,” Derek managed finally after he tore his gaze away from the building and looked back to where Will was rocking back and forth on his feet.

“You are,” Will replied with a shrug and turned around, walking toward the door. 

A warm familiar feeling spread through Derek’s chest as he went to follow him. Will had never been quiet about his distaste for art museums, claiming he just didn’t  _ get _ art, but he still took Derek to one because he knew he liked them.  _ Huh. _

“We should commemorate this,” Derek called after him, pulled out his phone and opened the front camera. “Let’s take a selfie. So I know it’s not a dream that William Poindexter willingly went to an art museum.”

“Don’t ruin this,” Will warned with a roll of his eyes, but he walked back over to Derek anyway.

Will put his arm around Derek’s shoulders and Derek leaned into him. He was hyper aware of Will’s warmth seeping through both their shirts, his side solid against him. He lifted his phone, making sure the lettering was in the frame with them, and grinned.

He took several pictures before lowering his arm again. “Why did you have to take so many?” Will complained half-heartedly, rubbing at his cheeks.

“In case you blinked in one of them,” Derek said nonchalantly as he flicked through them. They all actually turned out great, Will was photogenic, even if he always vehemently denied it. He contemplated setting the best one as his homescreen, but settled on the safer choice of sending it to his moms, and to the  _ boy problem _ group chat with the caption  _ dex at an art museum??? _

Derek pocketed his phone again and looked up just in time to see Will roll his eyes, still smiling.

Inside Derek ended up taking the lead while Will held the map they got at the entrance and followed him without protesting much, offering directions when they were needed. To Derek’s surprise, Will seemed to take this seriously too, he actually looked at the art and read the labels, asking serious questions here and there too. Derek tried his best to push down any fondness that wanted to settle in his chest and on his face.

They entered the next room and Will pointed at a painting of a person lying peacefully on a patch of grass in the sun and said, “That’s you.”

Derek came up behind him and laughed quietly. “That’s not me.”

“Is too,” Will argued. “Remember that time you fell asleep in the Quad? On that pile of leaves or something?”

Derek sighed in defeat. “You got me there.”

It didn’t take long for Derek to get revenge, though. A few rooms later they passed a portrait of a stoic man in old-timey riding clothes sitting atop a horse. “Found you,” Derek grinned triumphantly.

Will turned to look in his direction and snorted. “Absolutely not.” 

“Dude, I’ve seen you on a horse.” Derek crossed his arms, a challenge for Will to disagree with him.

“Not looking like  _ that, _ though,” Will said and wrinkled his nose, making Derek snicker as he turned his head away.

After that, they kept pointing out works that reminded them in some way of the other, from reasonable paintings all the way to the abstract ones. Their laughter rose with every piece and every sculpture, and he was surprised they weren’t kicked out before getting back to the start, although they had definitely gotten more than a few strange looks here and there. Not that Derek really minded much, the affection that had snuck in at the sight of Will enjoying himself and laughing with him was a pretty good distractor.

When they left the museum, Derek was startled to find it was nearing four already. They had spent three hours touring the halls and making fun of each other and the art. Derek hardly noticed the time passing, but then again that had kind of become a thing with Will recently.

“What’s next?” he asked, looking at Will expectantly.

“I thought we’d go to Old Port,” Will said and started to walk along the street. “It’s an old district with stores and all. Probably fits your  _ hashtag aesthetic." _

Derek barked out a delighted laugh. “You didn’t just say that. I wish I could’ve recorded that for future generations.”

“Oh, fuck off. Bad enough that you talk like that,” Will complained, but Derek saw him grin anyway.

The walk to Old Port from the museum took them maybe fifteen minutes, and Derek took in the small city around him, soaking up every detail around them.

It always struck him as odd that people just lived and went about their days in places others went to for vacations, that the things people traveled far and wide for were just a normal part of people’s everyday lives.

The same could’ve been said about him and New York, Derek supposed. He hardly paid the Empire State Building or the Statue of Liberty any mind, only reminded by the tourists that stopped in the middle of the sidewalk to take pictures with no regard for anyone around them.

When they arrived, Derek was hit with how pretty it was. Cobble streets lined with old buildings and stores on both sides and filled with plenty of tourists buzzing about. He swiftly took out his phone and snapped pictures here and there of the beautiful architecture to send to his moms and any funny-looking seagulls that ventured into the city to get fed by passersby for Chowder and Farmer.

“You were right,” he said to Will eventually, “this does fit my  _ hashtag aesthetic." _

Will rolled his eyes in response and the lack of real annoyance in the gesture pulled a smirk onto Derek’s lips.

They had been walking along another street of Old Port when Derek stopped in his tracks, almost causing several people to crash into his back. “Oh my God, Dex!”

“What?” Will asked as he came to a halt a few paces in front of Derek. He skillfully dodged out of the way of some people walking past them and frowned at him, or at the sun behind him, Derek wasn’t sure, but his attention was caught by something that wasn’t Will, for once.

He pointed at a store a few yards ahead of them displaying shirts and sweaters, mugs and postcards and magnets with prints about Maine in varying degrees of tackiness, so naturally Derek was drawn to it. The white shirt with the delightfully obnoxious big, black lettering that read  _ I <3 Maine _ practically called his name. “I  _ need _ this, Dex.”

“Nurse, no,” Will said sternly but Derek was already on his way to the store, leaving Will to follow him.

“Nurse, yes,” Derek said enthusiastically as he rifled through the clothes hanger to find the size he wanted.

“God, you’re such a tourist,” Will complained but watched him browse anway.

“You literally took me to the most touristy area of this city,” Derek pointed out when he pulled out a shirt that was a size too big. Derek fully intended on wearing this shirt to sleep regularly, if only to remember this day by. And  _ maybe  _ annoy Will a little back at the Haus. “What did you expect, really?”

Will sighed but followed inside for Derek to pay for his new most prized possession. 

After that, they continued their stroll through Old Port. They got ice cream at a place that Will swore by and after a lick of his mint chocolate chip ice cream, which earned him chirps from Will, Derek saw why.

They stopped to take pictures of the district here and there, and Derek posted most of them to his Instagram story with a fitting filter on top. Occasionally, he was even able to coax Will into another selfie that he sent to his moms. And if he set one of them as his lock screen, that was entirely his business.

Eventually, Derek’s stomach growled.

“Time for dinner then, I guess,” Will laughed. “We could go up to Commercial Street and go to a seafood restaurant there.”

“Yes, _please_ ," Derek replied eagerly.

* * *

“So,” Will started when they left the restaurant, “I know it’s, like, eight, but Portland has a cool lighthouse a ten-minute drive from here. The museum’s closed by now, but I think it’d fit your whole aesthetic anyway, even without the history lesson.”

Derek wasn’t surprised that Will would describe lighthouses as cool. He grinned as he replied, “And what aesthetic would that be? Hot sailor?”

“Annoying tourist,” Will corrected without missing a beat as they started to walk back down the streets to the car.

Personally Derek was impartial at best in regards to lighthouses. Sure, they looked nice from the outside and they had been important, like, historically, but they weren't something he'd tack the word  _ cool _ to, necessarily. Still, if Will thought they were cool, Derek would look at a hundred lighthouses. He bumped his shoulder into Will’s. “Rude. But fine, show me that cool lighthouse.”

* * *

The lighthouse did look pretty cool, Derek had to admit, especially with the sun just starting to set behind them, dipping the white stone of the lighthouse into a golden glow.

“We should commemorate this,” Will suggested when they stood in front of the locked door. They couldn’t go in anymore, but Derek preferred this view over any information the museum could’ve given him anyway. _ "Without _ that terrible shirt.”

“Fine,” Derek agreed reluctantly. “But then you have to take another one of me with the shirt on. I need the full ‘annoying tourist’ experience after all.”

Derek came up next to Will and mirrored their pose from earlier that day but this time he pulled Will into his side with the arm he had draped over his shoulder and felt Will lean in further.

Will took multiple pictures, then Derek grinned. “Why so many?”

“Oh, you know,” Will said, shrugging as he stepped back a little to adjust the angle of his phone for Derek’s solo shot, “in case you blinked in one.”

Derek looked through his bag for his new shirt, pulled it out and then over the one he was wearing in one motion. He put both his thumbs up and slipped on the goofiest grin he could muster. This was most definitely the worst he had ever looked in Will’s presence and he found that it didn’t bother him as much as it had with past crushes. 

“This is ridiculous,” Will commented after he took the picture.

“No, this is _art_ ," Derek returned. “Send it to me, my moms are probably gonna print it and put it on the fridge.”

Derek slipped back out of the shirt and stuffed it back into the bag before letting his gaze wander around.There were hardly any people around since it was technically closed, so it was quiet except for the waves of the ocean crashing against the rocky shore and the light breeze ruffling the trees. It was peaceful, almost serene. He took a picture of the shore and the sun slowly going down as he tried to stifle a yawn.

“Wanna head home?” Will asked immediately and Derek nodded, thankful Will knew exactly what he needed.

Once they were back on the road toward Falmouth, Derek could’ve easily drifted off for a quick ten minute nap, but instead he decided to watch Will drive. He knew that Will was a good driver, knew what he was doing, and knew the car he was driving probably inside and out. Derek watched his hands rest on the steering wheel, thumbs tapping rhythmically.

“What?” Will asked eventually.

Derek smiled softly even though Will couldn’t see him. “Nothing, just looking.” 

* * *

Derek’s phone alarm went off at precisely eight, so he grabbed for it on the nightstand without opening his eyes to hit snooze. Once his fingers brushed against it, though, he ended up knocking it off the nightstand, the alarm getting mercilessly louder with each passing second. Derek groaned and reluctantly opened his eyes against the glaring sun to see that his phone had slid all the way under Will’s empty bed.

Crawling underneath it was a tight fit and required a lot of wiggling, but it was worth inhaling the dust once he finally managed to turn off the alarm and he sighed in relief when silence flooded the room again. It didn’t really make sense to return to the air mattress again now that he was up, though, so he wiggled back out and went to where his bag stood near the door instead to grab a clean shirt and his shorts from the day before. He wondered briefly if this was appropriate horseback riding attire, but he looked good in the light blue shirt and the shorts made his ass look even better, so it had to do. 

Derek went downstairs to the kitchen a little after eight to see Charlie sitting at the table eating a bowl of cereal. When he saw Derek come in, he raised the hand holding his spoon in greeting. Will, already dressed in a worn-out shirt and basketball shorts, stood next to the coffee machine with his eyes trained on the toaster. When he heard Derek come in, he slid a coffee mug his way, still steaming hot. 

“You do know we wanna leave in fifteen minutes, right?” Will asked as he took the toast out and put it on a plate before spreading jam on one side. Derek thought it might be Bitty’s handwriting on the label of the jar.

“And I’m ready,” he said, leaning forward to grab the coffee. “You’re the one still making himself breakfast.”

Charlie snorted as Will finished the sandwich. “That’s for you, asshole.” 

He turned to hand Derek the plate, but stopped dead in his tracks before he could reach out. It was almost comical, really, the way Will’s eyes wandered up and down his body and the way Derek felt his cheeks heat up and pride swell in his chest. Will coughed and met Derek’s eyes. “No,” he said flatly.

“No what?” Derek asked, ice creeping up his spine now.

Will went over to the table and set down the plate. “You, uh, you can’t wear that.”

“What’s wrong with my clothes?”

Will crossed his arms over his chest. “They’ll get dirty,” he said weakly. “I don’t want it to be my fault when you ruin your  _ nice _ clothes. I’ll lend you some of my old stuff.” He hurried out the kitchen before Derek could protest, so he leaned against the counter and took a long sip from his coffee instead. Just the way Derek liked it, again.

“Here,” Will said once he was back and handed Derek a faded shirt that might have once been an offensive bright red. “You’ll also need jeans, but we’ll change pants when we’re there.”

Charlie rolled his eyes, put his bowl in the sink, and went to leave the kitchen. On his way past Will, he reached up to lightly hit him in the back of his head. Will tried to kick him n the back of his knees and Derek felt like they might have gone through this motion a million times before.

“Good luck riding that horse today, Derek,” Charlie called as he walked through the dining room and out the front door.

“I’ll, uh, go change, then.” Derek turned around and hurried back up the stairs to Will’s room, taking the steps two at a time.

He took off his own blue shirt and exchanged it for Will’s. It immediately hit him how much this smelled like Will and he remembered all the times back at the Haus when Derek was too lazy or too tired or too hungover to look for his own hoodie, so he took the one Will seemed to always have hanging over his desk chair despite hardly ever wearing it himself. 

When he came back downstairs, Will was already waiting for him at the door, backpack on hanging off one shoulder and the sandwich in his hand. He didn't look at Derek as he shoved it into his hand, and said, “I’ll drive, so you can eat this.”

“Is this Bitty’s jam?” Derek asked as he slipped into his shoes and followed Will outside and into his car.

“Yeah, it’s cherry,” Will said, throwing the backpack onto the backseat and climbing into the front seat.

“Hell yeah, that’s my favorite,” Derek said as he fastened his seatbelt.

“I know,” Will returned, quietly, as he busied himself with starting his car. 

Derek tried to hide the fond smile that started making a home on his face lately and swallowed the warmth coming up in his chest with a bite of the sandwich.

* * *

Derek always got along well with people. He was charming when he wanted to be, and he wasn’t ashamed to admit that. It turned out that his charm extended to animals as well.

After changing into appropriately long pants—Will wore the same excruciatingly tight riding pants and, perhaps even worse, Derek got an old pair of Will’s jeans—they entered the actual stable, and the horses had all stuck out their heads when Derek walked past.

“I think I’m popular,” he said, grinning as he stepped closer to a box to let the horse sniff his hand.

“Horses are naturally curious animals, so don’t flatter yourself,” Will replied flatly from a few paces ahead.

Derek started to stroke the head of the horse, down from the eyes to its nostrils, and smiled. “No, I’m telling you, we have a  _ connection." _

* * *

The connection Derek had felt did not translate into actually _riding_ the horses.

“Okay, so, this is—and don’t laugh—this is Brooklyn,” Will said as they stood in front of a dark brown horse they could both easily look over. He threw a black helmet at Derek, then patted the neck of the horse with his free hand.

“Do I have to put this on?” Derek whined. He hated the helmet hair he got from his hockey helmet, and this one didn’t look any more forgiving either. “My hair’s gonna be ruined.”

“Yes, you have to put that on,” Will responded sternly. “I really don’t wanna have to clean up the blood when you crack your head open.”

Derek sighed in defeat. He knew Will was right and not cracking his head open sounded really appealing, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t complain about it. He mourned his good hair for a second before putting the helmet on. “How do I look?”

“Like you’re gonna survive a fall,” Will replied flatly. “Brooklyn is my uncle’s calmest and most patient horse. So she’s kinda like beginner level.”

Derek stretched his hand out and let the horse smell his palm before gently petting her head. “She likes me too, Dex,” he said victoriously with a satisfied grin to match.

“Yeah, well, she likes everyone. That’s kinda the point.” Will motioned for Derek to come up next to him. “So, are you ready to get up?”

“Dex, I’m standing here, sweating in jeans,” Derek said, “I’m more than ready.”

“You’ll thank me when you don’t get sores on your thighs from wearing shorts,” Will defended.

“Wouldn’t be the first ones,” Derek shot back and wiggled his eyebrows at Will, who just rolled his eyes at him, but Derek was sure he could see a blush creeping down the tips of his ears.

“Hold onto the middle of the saddle and put your foot into the stirrup to hoist yourself up. Then just swing your other leg over her back,” Will instructed with a calm and gentle voice.

Derek put his right foot into the stirrup, held onto the saddle for dear life, and took a couple of little practice jumps before pulling himself up and over the horse’s back. The mounting part didn’t seem so bad, maybe he could actually do this somewhat gracefully. He would love to see Will’s expression when he managed to ride a horse as confidently as he saw Will do just three days earlier.

It was a strange feeling, sitting on top of a horse. Even through the saddle, he could feel Brooklyn’s muscles move as she shifted underneath him, Derek moving with it. 

“Good,” Will said and something told Derek that he had done this part a lot before, like Will had memorized some sort of script. “Make sure you’re relaxed.”

“Alright, what’s next?” Derek asked. He really got this. He successfully mounted a horse, he was ready for whatever came next.

“Moving,” Will replied and let go of the reins. “Take the reins in both your hands and hold them in a loose fist.”

Derek did as he was told and confidence started flooding in, making him grin. If this was a test, he would be acing this.

“Nice, now lightly pull them to get her attention, and then gently squeeze her with your legs.”

Brooklyn began to walk forward slowly, Derek felt triumphant. It only took a few steps, though, before he started to feel like something wasn’t right, like he was drifting off to one side, and his attempts to scoot back up were entirely futile. His grin slipped with him as he called out to Will. “Dex, I think—”

He landed on the grass with a dull thud. He didn’t fall hard or fast, but he did fall from almost six feet, so his back  _ hurt _ and the wind was knocked out of him. “Fuck,” he groaned miserably.

Will was clearly trying to keep from laughing as he walked over to where Derek was still lying in the dirt and he couldn’t really bring himself to be annoyed. Brooklyn had stopped walking and turned to look at him too. Great. “Are you okay, Nurse?”

Derek looked up at Will and, after a moment, burst out laughing. It didn’t take long for Will to join in.

“Guess you were right. About the clothes. And the helmet,” he admitted once the both of them had calmed down enough and Will reached down toward Derek to pull him back up.

“That looked so fucking hilarious. The way you fell in, like, slow-motion. Wish I could’ve recorded it.”

“Fuck you, Poindexter,” Derek shot back, grinning.

Will went to grab Brooklyn’s reins, then he turned back to look at Derek. “Maybe the beginner’s horse was a bit too advanced for you, but a bet’s a bet.”

“Haven’t I embarrassed myself enough already?”

“I won fair and square. I said you’d have to ride a horse, and your five seconds of glory really can’t be called that.”

Derek crossed his arms. “Well, what do you have in mind? Don’t think I wanna get on another horse on my own.”

“Oh.” Derek watched him fidget with the reins in his hand for a moment. “We could ride double,” Will suggested and pointedly avoided Derek’s face.

“What if I fall again?” Derek raised an eyebrow, unsure. One fall really was enough, he wasn’t really keen on sitting out games because he fucked up his back by falling off a horse.

“You won’t,” Will promised, his voice leaving no room for doubt.

He turned toward Brooklyn and hoisted himself up, way more graceful than Derek had probably looked. It also gave Derek a truly wonderful view of Will’s ass. When he found his balance in the saddle, he pulled his feet out of the stirrups, scooted back as far as the saddle allowed him to, and extended his hand toward Derek. “Alright, do the same thing as before. Please don’t kick me.”

Derek grabbed Will’s hand with his left, the saddle with his right one, and put his right foot into the stirrup. He accidentally kneed Will when he moved it over, though. “Sorry,” he mumbled once he was sitting comfortably but awfully close to Will’s chest.

“I’m communicating with Brooklyn with my feet and weight, so please don’t move yours.” Will reached around him to grab the reins in both his hands and scooted forward again until his chest was flush against Derek’s back, warmth creeping into Derek’s chest and onto his face immediately. He exhaled shakily and nodded faintly.

He felt Will move his legs against Brooklyn and then she started walking again. Derek tensed up, but Will didn’t hesitate to press his arms tighter against his sides. “Don’t worry, I got you,” he said, and went to almost rest his chin on Derek’s shoulder. “Is that—” Will swallowed. “Is that okay? I kinda need to see where we’re, uh, where we’re going.”

“Yeah,” Derek managed weakly and nodded again. He wasn’t exactly sure how he was supposed to survive this, really, with Will all up in his senses, his steady weight behind him and his arms around his waist. 

Will took them around the property and it didn’t take Derek long to relax and lean back against Will’s chest, trying his best to listen to Will telling him about the pastures, the pens where they trained, and the horses.

“So, what do you do around here?” Derek asked on their way back toward the boxes.

“Whatever my uncle needs me to do, I guess,” Will replied and Derek felt his voice reverberate through his chest. “Cleaning out the boxes, grooming the horses, teaching some beginners, fixing stuff.”

Derek laughed. “You teach people how to ride?”

“Well, most people are better students than you.” Derek could hear the shit-eating grin in his voice. “My skill’s only good enough for the beginners. I don’t have anything on my uncle or my aunt.”

“So, what, you put kids on ponies and make sure they don’t fall off?”

“Sometimes,” Will responded with a light shrug and pulled back on the reins. “Sometimes it’s adults on normal-sized horses too.”

“And how many of those adults are signing up for these courses because of the instructor?” Derek asked, hoping Will didn’t see through his fake chill facade.

“None,” Will replied flatly.

“I call bullshit.”

Will hesitated for a moment and Derek was sure that if they had been facing each other he could have seen Will narrow his eyes at him. “This is a small town in Maine, Nursey.”

Once Brooklyn stopped in front of the boxes, Will swung his leg over the horse and jumped off in a fluid motion and Derek did his best to push down the odd feeling that arose at the loss of their contact.

“Come on,” Will said, still holding onto the reins and reaching up a hand for Derek to grab again. “Swing your leg over and jump. Try not to fall again.”

To his surprise, properly dismounting a horse wasn’t so bad. Or maybe it was because he had Will’s hand in his, even if just briefly.

* * *

The two weeks after that were quiet. Peaceful, even.

Every day Derek came down later than he should have but Will poured him a cup of coffee and saved him a plate of breakfast anyway. 

They went to the stables together almost every weekday where Derek met Will’s uncle Michael, who turned out to be the guy on the cutout Derek had crashed into when he arrived. He watched Will work, focused and methodical, helped where Will would let him, and chatted with any riders passing by. He even got along well with Michael the handful of times he actually saw him around. 

Derek and Grace discovered that they had a shared love for cooking over dinner one evening, so he started staying behind whenever she had a day off. They usually spent it in the kitchen or at the local farmer’s market. 

Neither of them were good at baking—that was Will’s thing, Grace said—so they stuck to cooking and talking. Derek told her about his family, his moms and cousins, about being an only child. Grace, in turn, told him about her nine brothers and how Will and Charlie had probably worked for all of them at one point or another while they traded recipes. It felt homey, kind of like the afternoons he had spent with Bitty in the Haus kitchen, watching him fuss over whatever pastry he had set his mind to that day.

It turned out that Derek and Martin had a lot in common too. 

They were both only children with a great love for literature and, despite their eloquence, clumsy at expressing their feelings. While he was helping Martin go through his students’ essays, Derek had asked him about his and Grace’s story, purely out of curiosity with maybe a side of nosiness, and Martin had given him a knowing sort of smile Derek wasn’t quite sure how to interpret, but told him about the poems he had written in his senior year of high school, none of which really hit the mark of what he was trying to say. 

To that Derek could relate, thinking back to all the poems would never admit to having written. Martin had looked him directly in the eyes when he said that all he had to do was tell Grace how he felt, as she had always been oblivious and expressed her love through actions. The  _ just like Will _ Martin added at the end threw Derek for a loop for the rest of the day.

Some nights Charlie and Derek stayed up after Will had gone to bed and played video games together, switching effortlessly between chirping each other and talking about whatever crossed their mind. He learned about Charlie’s girlfriend, Elizabeth, that he was supposed to be visiting for a few weeks when Derek arrived, and his—totally reasonable, in Derek's opinion—fear of clowns.

Derek called his moms at least three times a week and they teased him relentlessly every time. Sometimes Will would join him, slipping on his charming smile that required all of Derek’s attention. He was sure that he would never live down the amount of times he had to say  _ huh, what? _ when a question was directed at him while Will was around. Thankfully, his moms seemed to genuinely like Will, which made up for any future chirping he would have to endure.

Will and Derek called Chowder and Farmer once a week, and he couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like if it was a  _ Will-and-Derek _ call to  _ Chowder-and-Farmer. _

The  _ boy problem _ group chat was as busy as ever as Derek shared little interactions—including what Martin had told him—with them, earning him exasperated reactions and innumerable eye roll emojis with an insistent  _ just tell him! _ every time that he happily chose to ignore.

Derek felt welcome at the Poindexter home, like it was right where he was supposed to be.

* * *

It was the last Friday of July as Will and Derek sat in the car after work when Will turned toward Derek, making no move to start the car at all.

“So, everyone’s out tonight,” he said and Derek could feel his determination to keep eye contact radiating off him.

“True,” Derek agreed when Will didn’t say anything for a moment, an attempt to fill the silence, or maybe an encouragement for Will to finish what he wanted to say.

“Do you, uh, do you wanna make pizza?” Will asked finally, fiddling with the hem of his shirt. “Like from scratch. We’d probably be done around eight, but no one’s gonna be home all night.”

“Sure, that sounds dope,” Derek said and smiled at him. When Will nodded once, seemingly satisfied and relieved, and turned back around. “Do you want me to look up a recipe for pizza dough?”

Will started the car and pulled out of the parking lot. “Nope, but we’ll have to stop by the grocery store.”

* * *

Derek got to push the cart, following Will as he put in what he needed without seeming to think too hard about it, like he had a shopping list in his head that he went through methodically.

Derek was struck by the intimacy of it all, of shopping together, of making fun of each other in the produce section, of buying the other person’s favorite candy just because they were on their mind.

“What toppings do you want?” Will asked as he crouched down to browse the cans of tomatoes.

“How about pineapples?” Derek suggested.

Just like Derek knew he would, Will snapped his head up sharply to stare at Derek in disgust.  _ "No." _

Derek grinned. It was so easy to push Will’s buttons if you knew where they were and Derek had a pretty detailed map of them by now. It was infinitely more fun to do so lovingly rather than aggressively, Derek had learned in the past year and a half. “Why not? You’ve never even tried it!”

Will stood up and placed a can in the shopping cart. “I don’t need to _ try _ it to know that you don’t put _ fruit _ on a fucking pizza, Nurse.”

“It’s a wonderful symphony of contrasting tastes,” Derek said dramatically. “The way the savory and sweet interact is  _ amazing. _ They’re opposites but they work so well together. Kind of like us.”

Will wrinkled his nose in response. “Who's the pineapple in this metaphor?”

Derek scoffed. “Me, obviously. I’m sweet as hell.”

“Yeah, right,” Will snorted. “Does that mean I’m, what, salty, or something?”

“Sometimes,” Derek said and shrugged and nudged Will’s hip with the shopping cart gently. “When you’re in a mood.”

Will hummed as he put a can of sliced pineapples into the cart anyway. 

* * *

They stood in Will’s kitchen, alone, with the things they bought and the other ingredients gathered from around the kitchen spread out on the counter in front of them. It looked a little daunting to Derek, to be honest.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to look up a recipe for this?” Derek asked as Will began to measure and mix the dry ingredients together.

“Nope,” Will said again, focused frown settled on his face. Derek watched as he added the water and a hint of olive oil, and put his hands into the bowl to form the dough.

Derek watched Will work, arms flexing as he kneaded the dough. It looked like Will had plenty of experience and Derek wondered if he had an uncle for that too.

“Well, can I help?”

Will laughed. “What, you wanna do this like the pottery scene in  _ Ghost?" _

_Maybe._ _Yes._

Will hummed in thought for a moment. “You could start with the sauce, though, if you want.”

They ended up working in comfortable silence together, just existing around each other and peacefully tending to their tasks. Derek could get used to this, he thought.

Eventually, once Derek was done, he turned to Will and broke the silence. “So, why do you know how to do this? Do you have another uncle that’s, like, a baker or something?”

Will lifted the ball of dough out of his bowl and dropped it into a lightly oiled one, then walked over to the sink, where Derek turned the faucet on. “No,” he said as he began to rinse off the leftover dough on his fingers, “I don’t have an uncle who’s a baker. Just a horse rancher, a mechanic, a lobster fisherman, a plumber—” Will cut himself off with a laugh. “Sorry, there’s so many of them. But no, no baker. I’ve actually, uh, I’ve done this with Bits a few times? At the Haus? He basically taught me everything I know about baking.”

Derek smiled at the thought of Bitty and Will in the Haus kitchen when no one else was around, because he knew Will wouldn’t do this with people there to judge him. He could see Bitty explaining everything with endearing enthusiasm and Will doing his best at following the instructions, trying things over and over until he perfected them. 

“So you’re gonna make all the pies this year? As the new captain and all.”

“I mean, I can try. I’m nowhere near Bitty’s level, though.” Will turned off the water and went to dry off his hands before covering the dough with saran wrap.

Derek smirked. “Guess we’ll see after this pizza.”

“You’re not even gonna get the full experience, because you put fucking _ pineapple _ on it. That ruins the whole thing.”

“Does _not,"_ Derek defended.

“It kinda does,” Will said.

Derek huffed. “Try it and see that I’m right.”

“No, thanks, I’d prefer to not ruin my taste buds.”

Derek rolled his eyes. “Asshole.”

Will grinned. “Maybe. The dough has to rise for at least another hour. Wanna watch something?”

They ended up on the couch, pressed together closer than was really necessary, watching some bad HGTV show. Will kept ranting about how wrong what they were doing was, and Derek hummed along like he understood anything Will was throwing at the TV. To be fair, he didn’t know much about home renovation aside from getting a screw into a wall and assembling furniture, but he enjoyed listening to Will.

Eventually, the timer Will had set went off, though, and Derek couldn’t help but feel disappointed.

In the kitchen, Will unwrapped the dough as Derek leaned against the counter, watching him separate it and roll it out. Once Will was satisfied with his work and the sauce spread out, they moved on to the toppings, a devious smirk slipping onto Derek’s face.

“I’m stealing some of your ham,” Will announced when Derek started to carefully arrange the pieces of pineapple on his pizza. He tried to drop a piece or two onto Will’s but Will slapped his hand away before he could uncurl his fingers. “Pepperoni and pineapple is even worse than what you’re doing!”

“Only one way to find out,” Derek grinned as he picked up two more pieces and moved his hand over Will’s pizza again. 

“Stop, you’re so gross,” Will laughed, pushing Derek away with his side. 

“You love it,” Derek said, popping the pieces of pineapple into his mouth instead, and Will didn’t argue.

With the pizzas in the oven—it was no Betsy, so it was a tight fit, but Will made it work—and a timer set, they piled back in front of the TV to continue watching whatever horrible show Will could chirp.

The timer went off again, cutting Will off mid-sentence, and the smell of the pizza drifted through the first floor. “Dex, if this pizza tastes as great as it smells, you can’t ever leave me.”

Will bumped his shoulder against Derek’s. “I’ll think about it,” he said and got up.

He returned a few minutes later with their pizzas already perfectly cut. Derek grabbed a slice of his pineapple pizza once Will was settled back on the couch next to him and moved to touch it against the one Will was holding, but Will pulled it away just before Derek could make contact. “Don’t touch my good pizza with that shit! That’s disgusting.”

“You’re repeating yourself,” Derek grinned.

“Well, it begs repetition. Pineapple doesn’t belong on pizza.”

“Does too. Pineapple feels right at home on top of a pizza.” Derek bit into it, only barely stifling a moan. ”Holy shit, Dex, this is the best pizza I’ve ever had,” he said after he swallowed.

“The bar is pretty low with all the pineapple pizza you eat.”

They ate in silence then. Will raised his hand in exasperation at whatever was happening on the TV every now and then and Derek swallowed an entirely too soft smile with another bite of his pizza every time.

When both of them had finished, Derek stood to start cleaning up, but Will reached out and held him back by his wrist. 

"I'll take care of the kitchen, you can go take a shower," Will said and wrinkled his nose. "You need it.”

Derek laughed. “Rude.”

When Will stood up off the couch, Derek turned toward the stairs. "Thanks, I owe you," he said with a quick smile before he went.

"Don't worry about it, you're my guest," Will called after him.

* * *

Derek took his journal out to the backyard. It was a perfect night for writing outside, the air still comfortably warm despite the sun being almost fully gone. 

At the bottom of the stairs he heard Will’s voice coming from the kitchen, saying something about  _ I’ve tried that _ and _ absolutely not. _ When Derek came in, he found him sitting at the table with his phone at his ear. He stopped talking abruptly when he spotted him in the doorframe. Derek could have sworn he heard his teeth click.

“Sorry, just wanted to let you know I’ll be outside,” Derek said quickly and held up his journal.

“Alright,” Will said with a nod.

Outside he turned on the patio light—the warm light bright enough to allow him to write without fucking up his eyes too much, but not bright enough to ruin the atmosphere—and lay down on one side of the sofa. He pulled out his phone out of the pocket and updated Chowder and Farmer. 

When it didn’t seem like he was going to get a reply anytime soon, he propped the journal up on his knees, uncapped the pen, sticking the cap to the back of it, and started writing.

Derek managed to fill several pages of his journal before Will joined him out on the deck and sat down on the other side of the sofa. He had showered too, judging by the still damp hair and fresh clothes.

“What’re you writing?” Will asked as he pulled his legs up with him.

“An ode to pineapple pizza,” Derek said.

Will wrinkled his nose in a way that Derek refused to think of as cute. “Ugh, that’s gross,” Will laughed. “And I thought I’d seen the worst when you got that tourist-y Maine shirt.”

Derek put an open palm on the _ I <3 Maine _ lettering on his chest. “How dare you say that? This is the best shirt I own, Dex.”

Will snorted. “That’s not true. You look way better in literally everything else I’ve seen you wear.”

“So you’re saying I look bad in this shirt?”

Will held his gaze. “No.”

Derek swallowed and waited to see if Will would elaborate, turn this into a safe chirp somehow. When he didn’t, Derek forced his attention back to his pages and started writing again.

He was halfway through the last stanza of a poem when Will poked his foot with his own. 

“Do you ever write poetry about me?” Will asked, quietly like he was afraid Derek would actually hear him.

Derek’s head snapped up at that and his heart started hammering away in his chest again. He caught a glimpse of Will, vulnerable and open, not meeting Derek’s eyes. Will hadn’t taken his foot away from Derek’s yet.

The thing was that Derek  _ had  _ written poetry about Will, plenty of pages actually. They started out as rants about their fights, but eventually progressed into fondness for his quirks.

“I write poetry about everything,” Derek started, tentatively. He took a breath, gathering all the bravery he could get his hands on. “Sometimes about you too, yeah.”

“Oh, wow,” Will whispered, more to himself than anything else.

Derek tried a laugh that came out kind of strangled, but he was desperate to lighten the mood. Will had suddenly become unreadable and Derek wondered if what he said was too much or, maybe, even the wrong thing, if he made Will uncomfortable. He pretended like his voice wasn't ever so slightly shaking when he spoke. “So, uh, are you gonna name a horse after me?”

Will laughed now too. “Maybe the clumsiest one.” Derek kicked at Will’s calf, a smile settling on both their faces.

Derek returned his attention to the pages for a moment, but his focus was gone. With a sigh, he capped his pen and closed his journal. After he put it down on the coffee table next to them, he looked over at Will, neither of them moving their feet away.

“So, why horses?” Derek asked, leaning his side against the backrest.

Will shrugged. “Other people fish for lobsters here, I ride horses. Have been for a long time. Most summers, actually.”

“Gotta say, that kinda ranch is what I expect from, like, Texas, not coastal Maine.”

Will took a deep breath before he asked, “Have I ever told you about the reason why my uncle has it?”

Derek was sure that Will knew just as well that he  _ hadn’t  _ told him about it, but he didn’t call him out on it. “No,” he said instead. “Tell me.”

“Well, my uncle’s wife, Linda, is actually from Texas. They met back in the eighties in college and started dating. My aunt stayed in Maine, so they eventually got married, but she missed Texas like crazy. Well, at least the ranch she grew up on.” Will let his head fall back against the headrest of the sofa, looking up at the light above where a moth was buzzing against it again and again. “So Uncle Mike took riding lessons and ended up buying the property where he built the ranch. Got horses and everything, and gifted it to my aunt. As a piece of her old home in her new one, I guess.”

“Oh, wow,” Derek whispered, unsure what to say to that. The sheer amount of love in that gesture made him dizzy. “That’s so romantic, holy shit.”

Will smiled up at the light. “Yeah, well,” he started and looked back at Derek, holding his gaze. 

They sat in silence for a beat, looking at each other, before Derek spoke up again.

“Why aren’t you doing horseback riding competitively then?”

Will shrugged. “Riding’s fun, but I knew hockey was it for me from the moment I started it when I was eight. I mean, you’ve seen my room.”

Derek smirked. “You mean your Bergeron shrine.”

“It’s _ one _ fucking poster,” Will said a little louder.

“It’s one poster and a _whole-ass dog._ ” Derek cackled when Will rolled his eyes and threw one of the pillows at him. Derek caught it and tucked it against his chest, resting his chin on its edge. “You really wanna go pro then?”

“I mean, that’d be a dream come true.”

“Yeah,” Derek said, “So who would you wanna sign with? Let me guess. The Bruins.”

Will shrugged again, just one shoulder, trying for casual but Derek could hear the sliver of hope in his voice. “Maybe. If they’ll take me.”

Derek scoffed. “Dex, please, you’re so good at hockey and you’re gonna be captain next year, a great one at that. Boston would be stupid not to invite you to dev camp.”

Will smiled as he nudged him with his foot again. “Thanks, Nurse. You’re not so bad yourself.”

“It’s all thanks to this amazing defense partner I have,” Derek replied and smiled back.

Charlie poked his head out and let his eyes slip over the both of them. If he had intended to demand they make room for him to join them, he scratched that idea when his eyes landed on their legs, a little more entangled than before. “I’m back, Patty went upstairs,” he said simply.

Will put his head back onto the headrest and craned his neck until he was looking at Charlie upside down.

“Sup,” Derek greeted with a smile and a little wave.

“How was it?” Will asked.

“It was great seeing my girlfriend, thank you very much. Liz is coming over for dinner next weekend,” Charlie said and Derek thought he could see a faint smile on his face as he pointed his index finger at them sternly. “So, please, be on your best behavior.”

“We’ll try,” Derek said, and Will added, “No promises, though.”

Charlie rolled his eyes, then knocked against the doorframe once. “Well, I’m going to bed.”

Will and Derek called out a  _ night _ in unison as Charlie went back inside. Will turned his head to the side to look into the dark garden, and Derek allowed himself to look at Will's throat, his sharp jawline, his eyes that were flicking around the space.

Two years ago he never would have thought this was possible but Will looked  _ soft. _ Once they had actually gotten their shit together, Derek noticed that Will’s anger was superficial, an easy emotion to hide behind. 

The closer they got, though, Derek found that Will was, underneath it all, someone who cared fiercely about people with a less than ideal way of showing it. The past months, Derek noticed that Will let his guard down, allowed himself to expose his soft parts around Derek a lot more than the two years before. It was nice—really nice, actually—but it was also shaping up to be the death of him.

“So, since we’re in New England,” Derek started. When Will turned his head back toward him, Derek sat up straight, careful not to disturb their legs too much, and crossed his arms. He put on his serious voice he usually reserved for class debates his professors thought were necessary for the grade. “Yankees or Red Sox?”

Will snorted. “That’s not the only thing people talk about here.” He sat up and mirrored Derek’s position, looking directly into his eyes. “But Red Sox, obviously. I have an old Red Sox hat from my dad, it’s wicked faded and actually starting to fall apart.”

Derek laughed, and Will cracked a smile for a second, but managed to regain his composure and continued to talk. “Besides, what kind of name is Yankees anyway? They’re named after a candle brand.”

There were many things he could have said—he could have argued in defense for the Yankees, even though he didn't care about baseball all that much—but instead Derek just laughed a little harder, a little louder. “I don’t think that’s right.”

“Oh yeah?” Will said, composure breaking as he uncrossed his arms and started grinning wider with every word. “Do you want me to look it up?” He leaned his face a little closer to Derek and jabbed a finger into his shoulder in mock accusation. “Huh? Is that what you want?”

Derek laughed even harder and had to wipe a tear from the corner of his eye. “No,” he said after he calmed down, a soft smile on his lips that might have been a little more wistful than he wanted it to be, if anyone was really looking. “Sometimes I like not knowing. Can’t get disappointed that way.”

He could have sworn he saw Will look at his lips and back up in a second, something Derek didn’t dare identify in his gaze. “How do you know you’re gonna get disappointed?”

Derek wanted to ask what he meant, wanted to lean in, wanted to treasure this moment. But then the front door slammed shut and they jumped apart, startled by the sudden loud noise, the bubble they had been in popped without so much as a warning. Then Grace opened the patio door and poked her head out.

“Oh, you boys are still up,” she said in greeting. “It’s almost two.”

“And we’re both adults, mom,” Will replied, a little stiff.

“Of course, honey,” Grace smiled as she stepped outside. Derek thought she might have been tipsy, if her messy hair and the little sway to her step was anything to go by. “What were you doing?” Then she looked between the both of them. “Oh shoot, am I interrupting—”

_ "No, _ mom, we were just talking,” Will said quickly around a yawn. Derek was still buzzing from what could have been just a few moments ago to really say anything to Grace, so he just smiled. “We should probably go to bed now, though,” Will continued and tapped Derek’s leg.

“Alright, sleep well, boys,” she said as Derek grabbed his journal and pen from the table before they stood up and went back inside with a quick  _ night. _

* * *

Upstairs, Will excused himself to the bathroom and Derek continued on to his room. He knew the way by heart now, so he pulled his phone out of his pocket and went into the  _ boy problem _ group chat. He found the replies to his text from earlier and started to read them as he approached Will's room.

boy problem  
  
**Yesterday** 10:24 PM  
chowder  
you guys just made??? pizza??  
farmer  
you know what they say ;)) the way to a man’s heart  
you should talk to him asap

Derek opened Will’s door without looking up, typing as he maneuvered through the room.

**Today** 2:15 AM  
guys holy shit  
we spent the whole evening outside just talking  
and then at the end i couldve sworn he was looking at my lips for a second  
it was probably just a trick of the light tho lbr

Derek slipped his phone back into his pocket and let himself fall backwards onto the air mattress, but instead of the softness of it, he felt a sharp pain as he hit the ground ass first. 

He groaned and turned to look behind him and found that he was sitting on a sad pile of plastic. He hadn’t missed the air mattress, not really. It had just deflated entirely.

Derek pulled himself up to his feet and rubbed his hands over the painful spot a couple of times while inspecting the mess in front of him. He pulled up the blanket and quickly found what he was looking for: holes that looked an awful lot like claw marks. 

Will slipped into the room then, stopping just behind Derek. “Everything okay?”

Derek pointed his foot to the holes square in the middle. “I think Patty got a little overexcited.”

“Oh, fuck,” Will said, sounding a little more awake now. “Uh,” he muttered as he scratched at his cheek. “My bed is big enough to share,” he suggested slowly, tentatively. “Or I could take the couch. If you’re not comfortable with that.”

Derek turned to look at Will, his heartbeat nearly loud enough in his own ears to drown out his next words. “Nah, sharing’s fine.”

Will nodded, once, twice, mostly to himself probably, then motioned for Derek to climb in first. “Not even gonna ask me if I want the wall or not,” Derek said as he crawled to the far end of the bed, shaking his head.

“I’ll get up before you and you know it,” Will justified and rolled his eyes, picking up Derek’s pillow and throwing it in his face before he joined him.

Derek yawned and when he opened his eyes again, Will had settled in next to him, his back to the room, a hand under his pillow and his eyes closed. Derek really wanted to reach out and run his hands through Will’s hair—hold his hand, grab his waist—but the comfort of finally sleeping in a real, actual bed again pulled him into sleep before he could convince his muscles to consider moving.

* * *

When Derek woke up the next morning, Will was still facing him. His breaths came in even, his face—free of his usual frown and so peaceful—buried half in his pillow with his arms curled up against his collarbones, his blanket trapped between his legs, one of them dangerously close to Derek’s side.

Derek closed his eyes again and fell back asleep with a soft smile on his lips.

* * *

They didn’t talk about the night out on the deck. 

They didn’t bother to patch up or replace the air mattress either. A  _ we should get rid of it, it’s only taking up space _ and a  _ yeah _ led to them sharing Will’s bed permanently and Derek thought he’d never slept better, not even in his king size bed at home in New York.

* * *

The following Saturday Liz came over for dinner, just like Charlie had promised.

Grace pulled Liz into the house with a tight hug, telling her how she had been missed and asking about school all in one breath. Before she could reply, she was passed off to Martin, who hugged her lightly, giving her a few pats on the back before he released her toward Charlie. 

She leaned up to kiss him and high-fived Will at the same time, one fluid motion. It looked practiced to perfection, like this was the ritual they went through every time she visited, and Derek supposed it was.

When she stepped out from where she was standing in front of Charlie, Derek noticed that she was shorter than everyone else—barely reaching up to his collarbone—with dark blonde hair tied in a ponytail and a colorful floral tattoo stretching from her left shoulder to her elbow. She smiled, a bright one that reached her brown eyes, as she held out a hand for him to shake. “Hey, I’m Liz.”

“Derek Nurse,” he said, smiled back at her, and shook her hand. He had to admit she had one hell of a grip, one that could probably rival Jack’s. “I guess I’m crashing the family dinner.”

Liz laughed. “No way. I’ve heard so much about you, you’re definitely as much a part of this as I am.”

Charlie ushered them into the living room and onto the couch, Liz and Charlie sitting at the opposite ends of it with Will and Derek slotted between them. Will sat close enough to him that their shoulders were pressed together and their knees rested against each other.

“How long have you guys been dating?” Derek asked, turning to his left slightly to look at Liz, careful not to tear away from Will.

“About two years now,” she replied, smiling softly at Charlie.

“Best two years of my life,” Charlie grinned from next to Will.

“What about you guys?” Liz asked, her voice mirroring Derek’s casual tone. Will tensed up next to him and he thought he saw Charlie swipe his hands across his throat furiously in a cut-throat motion out of his periphery as his own cheeks heated up. 

“Oh, uh, we’re-we’re not—”

Liz’s expression dropped immediately. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to—” 

Will laughed next to him, a little more awkward than Derek was used to by now, and Derek said, “It’s fine.”

Grace’s voice calling for Liz cut through the awkwardness and Liz looked immensely grateful for it. She stood up and pointed her thumb over her shoulder toward the kitchen. “I better go check what she needs,” she said and hurried out.

With her presence next to him gone, Derek was only half tied to this moment by Will next to him—to his surprise, he was still pressed against his side—while the other half of him was floating off in thought. He heard Will and Charlie talk next to him but none of it really stuck.

He racked his brain, trying to figure out what could have given her that idea. Was it something Will had said about him to his family? He sighed—it was probably best to shelf this freakout for later when he could text Chowder and Farmer about it—and forced his attention back to the conversation between the brothers.

“I used to work on Uncle Gene's lobster boat too and you know it,” Will said, his arms crossed.

“Yeah, you did. For, like,  _ a summer. _ It's okay, Billy, lobster farming isn't everyone's thing,” Charlie teased, a grin starting to tug on his lips.

“Oh yeah?” Derek could tell Will was trying to keep his own grin in. “I'm pretty sure I killed it and Uncle Gene asked me not to come back the next year just so I wouldn't hurt your feelings.”

Charlie barked out a laugh. “Sure. Derek, what do you think? Who’s the better lobster farmer between us?”

Derek pretended to think about it, chin poised in the crook between his thumb and index finger, humming. He hadn’t seen Will fish for lobsters before, obviously, but he could easily imagine him on the deck of a boat, sorting through the day’s catch, pushing up his sleeves and squinting against the sun, even more freckles on his cheeks and arms and shoulders. He knew Will was practical and patient—not necessarily with people, even though he was working on that, Derek could tell, but rather with whatever task was put in front of him—so he didn’t doubt Will would be great, but that felt like too big of a confession. “I’m gonna have to go with Charlie.”

Will looked at him, the betrayal clear in his open mouth and furrowed eyebrows. “Backstabber!”

Charlie laughed again and Derek bumped his shoulder against Will’s. Derek angled his body so that he could look past Will directly at Charlie, resting his right arm on the headrest of the couch behind Will’s head, his knee still pressed against Will’s. “Hey Charlie,” he began and Charlie hummed, so Derek smirked, a matching glint indubitably in his eyes. “Tell me the most embarrassing story about Dex that you know.”

Charlie’s face lit up. “Oh my God, has Billy told you about that time he tried to—”

Will’s hand shot up instantly to cover Charlie’s mouth. “Don’t you _dare,"_ he warned, blushing furiously, so naturally Derek’s curiosity only grew.

“Don't be rude, Dexy, let the man talk.”

“Absolutely no—” Will pulled his hand back just as fast as he had put it there and wiped it on Charlie’s shirt with a look of pure disgust on his face. ”Ew, Charlie, did you just lick my fucking _hand?"_ Charlie cackled.

“I have another idea,” Charlie announced and hurried off the couch and out of the living room before Will could stop him.

“What’s he doing?” Derek asked.

“I don’t—” Will suddenly looked mortified. _“No,"_ he whispered.

A second later Charlie returned with a thick book—a photo album, Derek hoped—and a shit-eating grin on his face. 

“Charles, no!” Will yelled and reached up to grab the album out of Charlie’s hands.

“William Jacob, yes!” Charlie lifted it higher and out of Will’s reach, then went to plop down next to Derek, leaving him sandwiched between the brothers.

Charlie rested the album on his legs and when he opened it, Derek leaned into his space. “You’re the fucking worst,” Will groaned at his other side.

“Hey, you have literally no leg to stand on,” Charlie said to Will, then looked at Derek. “Our parents made one of those albums for me too, you know, and Billy here whipped that thing out when I first brought Liz home. I’ve earned this.”

Charlie turned his attention back to the album and left Derek absolutely no time to think about what he had just said before he gleefully walked him through the pictures of Will’s life. 

He expected Charlie to tease his brother relentlessly, but his voice was laced with love instead as he told Derek about the picture of Will skating at a rink for the first time when he was four, clinging to Charlie for dear life.

Derek noticed the pride in him too, when they reached a picture from Will’s first peewee hockey game that left him with a missing front tooth and bleeding lip but still grinning at the camera anyway. Will leaned forward then too and claimed that one of the other team’s forwards hit him with his stick on purpose and didn’t even get a penalty for it. 

The teasing Derek expected came when they reached Will’s teenage years. Charlie’s face never lost the shit-eating grin as he showed off Will’s embarrassing phases one by one. Derek had the time of his life, really.

Charlie proudly presented him his favorite picture of sixteen-year-old Will with hair that went well over his ears and came dangerously close to his eyes with bleached blond tips. Derek was forced to come to the realization that frosted tips somehow looked even worse with ginger hair. He winced in sympathy—he had done his fair shair of dumb shit as a teenager, like get a tattoo at seventeen at the first tattoo shop that would take his money, but thankfully this wasn’t about him—and patted Will on the shoulder twice. “Frosted tips in 2012? That’s a rough look, bud.”

Charlie already thumbed at the page to turn it with the promise of a picture of Will’s first ever hangover at seventeen when Grace called them to dinner. He let out a noise of disappointment that Derek definitely agreed with, but Will sighed in relief as he hurried the three of them into the dining room.

* * *

After dinner, Charlie roped them into a backyard fire, which actually meant that Will ended up arranging all the wood in the fire pit and Liz and Derek got stuck with carrying down the chairs from the deck while Charlie got to retreat inside and fill up a small cooler with whatever beer he could find.

By the time Charlie finally joined them again, Will had already lit the fire and the three of them had claimed seats, so he sat the cooler down next to the only chair left between Liz and Will. He took out three cans of beer, passed one to Liz, then walked the few steps over to his brother.

Will grinned up at him and said, “You’re encouraging underage drinking, Charlie.”

Charlie raised an unimpressed eyebrow and Derek laughed. “Your birthday is in, like, ten days,” Derek said. “Besides, I’ve seen you drink way worse at the Haus every Kegster.”

Charlie turned toward Derek. “You’re twenty-one, right, Derek?”

“Yessir,” Derek replied and sat up straight when Charlie handed him both beers before he went back to his seat, ears deaf to Will’s protests.

Derek let a few seconds pass before he decided Will had gotten his complaints out of his system and threw one of the cans at him.

“When’s your birthday?” Liz asked as she cracked her beer open, eyes focused on Derek instead.

“February fourteenth. I’m a Valentine’s baby.”

“That’s cute,” Liz smiled. “Are you a romantic like your birthday suggests then?”

Derek hummed. “Yeah, I’m the whole cliché. I even write poetry.”

“Charlie wrote me a poem once,” Liz said, then scrunched up her face, “It wasn’t very good.”

“Got Dad to help and all, but it was still shit. You still love me, though.”

“Sure do,” Liz said and leaned over the armrest of her chair and toward Charlie for a quick kiss, and Derek couldn’t help but smile. 

“What do you like about poetry?” Liz asked, looking back at Derek.

“I guess, I like being able to say things,” he glanced at Will briefly, “without having to actually outright say them, you know?”

“That’s deep,” Charlie said and raised his beer.

Derek looked between the both of them and, because he was a martyr at heart, asked, “So, how’d you two meet?”

“Well,” Liz started, her eyes flickering to Charlie briefly, “I’m from Pennsylvania, but I came here for college and my sophomore year, some of my friends suggested we take a trip to Falmouth. For the tourist attractions, you know, so we went to one of the bars.”

“She’s a mess when she’s drunk,” Charlie threw in, laughing. 

“Me too,” Derek admitted solemnly.

Will snorted next to him. “Understatement.” Derek kicked him lightly.

Liz eyed Will curiously for a moment before she continued. “Well, I got drunk and thought taking a walk through this town I've never been to alone with a dead phone was a brilliant idea.” Oh, Derek had definitely been there. “When I got to the docks where Eugene’s lobster boat was docked, it was early morning. There were people around getting, like, ready for work. I was so close to just talking to one of them to point me to a bus stop or something.”

“But then I literally ran into her.”

“When I told him about my situation, he ditched work and got me back to my dorm. After getting me breakfast, of course. In Portland, I gave him my number and we started texting. A few months later I was so charmed I let him take me on a date.”

“That’s real cute,” Derek said and offered them a sincere smile. “What are you doing now career-wise, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Oh, I’m getting my Master’s in Accounting in Portland, but I’m currently doing an internship in Massachusetts,” Liz replied.

Math was not Derek’s friend. He had to get Will’s and Chowder’s help to pass the calculus class for his science requirements—which he’d put off until his junior year—and even sandwiched between them, the concepts hardly made any sense to him. Watching Will and Chowder do their homework and assignments like the numbers didn’t make Derek’s head spin always left him awestruck, just a little. 

“Holy shit,” he said, that familiar awe creeping into his voice again.

“She’s wicked good with numbers,” Charlie said. “Wicked smart in general.” 

He heard Will pretending to gag, so he turned to look at him. “Aw, don’t be like that, Dexy,” he said and nudged Will with his foot as he did his best to mimic Charlie’s accent, “you’re also wicked smart and good with numbers.” Will rolled his eyes, but Derek could see the faint smile in the glow of the fire anyway.

Liz and Derek competed for the title of messiest drunk and he managed to claim it for himself once he told her about Nursey Patrol and Will chimed in with his own stories of actually being  _ on  _ Nursey Patrol, which led to Charlie telling them about fishing accidents on his uncle’s boat that left Derek hissing in sympathy.

Eventually, long after the sun had set and they’d emptied out the cooler, Liz and Charlie announced that they would be heading to bed. Derek held out his hand in goodbye to Liz, but she only rolled her eyes—a little too much time around Will, Derek thought—and didn’t hesitate to lean down for a hug.

“It was so nice to meet you,” she said into his shoulder. “Hope to see you at the next family dinner as well.” She gave Will what Derek thought was a stern look before she headed up the stairs, and Charlie ruffled Will’s hair and fist-bumped Derek on his way past them.

“Do you wanna stay out for a bit longer?” Will asked, his eyes never leaving the flames, and when Derek hummed in agreement. He added more wood to it.

“Liz is chill,” Derek said as he watched Will, his face illuminated by the fire, shadows moving rapidly with the flames. He really was pretty like this. “Charlie too. And your parents, of course.”

“I'm glad you chose Maine,” Will said, then turned to look at Derek. “I’m glad you’re here. With me.”

Derek’s chest swelled and he smiled. “Me too.”

Will smiled back at him, a soft and fragile thing, then turned back toward the fire. He picked up a stick and started poking the smoldering wood, so Derek rested his head against the back of the chair and looked up.

The beers hadn’t gotten him drunk and whatever tipsiness he’d felt had long passed. Content and calm, he scanned the night sky for patterns he recognized or maybe a shooting star or two, fire in front of him cracking gently, Will’s breathing next to him almost matching his own.

Will cleared his throat a while later, breaking the comfortable silence that had settled over them like a blanket, so Derek rolled his head to the side to look at him, and Will snapped the stick he’d been playing with in half and threw it into the fire.

He watched the flames move for a moment, then Will took a shaky breath next to him. “Derek,” Will said, and his head snapped up at that. His eyes found Will’s, so open and vulnerable, and he thought he could see Will fumble with his hands, picking at his fingers out of the corner of his eyes. “I like you.”

His heart skipped a beat, or two, or ten. Then it kick-started again, hammering against his ribcage that he feared the bones might crack. 

“I get it if you—”

Derek cut him off immediately. “Are you drunk?”

“What? No?”

“Oh my God,” Derek whispered to himself, then let out a weak laugh and Will’s eyebrows shot up, in worry probably or maybe expectancy, Derek wasn’t sure. All of his people-reading skills had gone out the window the moment Will said his name.

“I like you too, oh my God.” He laughed again, louder this time. “The amount of times I annoyed Chowder and Farmer with this, holy _shit._ ”

“What? You talked to Chowder? But I talked to him—”

“I kinda really wanna kiss you right now,” Derek interrupted again, giddiness leaking into a grin and rushing his words out.

“Oh. You, uh, you really should do that, then.”

Derek was out of his chair before Will could even finish speaking, and then he was chest to chest with him, heart hammering behind his ribs where he was sure Will could feel it. “Yo,” he whispered into the space between them as his hands settled on Will’s waist.

Will cupped Derek’s face in both his hands, eyes dropping to his lips as he pulled him into a kiss. 

Derek melted into it, all of his thoughts swirling around  _ Will, Will, Will. _ His warm breath on Derek’s cheek, the feeling of Will’s mouth against his, one of Will’s hands moving to the nape of his neck and curling into his hair. Derek had spent years of his life feeling like he didn’t quite belong—at Andover he never really looked, never really felt like the other kids, and without his moms the house in New York often felt too empty, too cold—but right here, in Will’s arms, kissing him on his porch, Derek was right where he was supposed to be. 

“Was that everything you hoped it would be?” Will asked when he pulled back, just a little, to rest their foreheads together. His raspy voice and the way he gently scratched his scalp made Derek’s knees weak.

“Even better,” he said, barely able to contain a dopey grin. Will leaned back in and Derek could feel his smile against his lips. 

When they broke away again, the fire behind them had died and a shiver ran up Derek’s spine—he wasn’t sure if it was because of the breeze that had picked up or because of Will’s fingers that had found their way underneath the hem of his shirt at some point.

“We should go inside,” Will suggested.

“Buy me dinner first,” Derek laughed.

“Oh, fuck off.”

“Make me,” Derek said with a daring grin and Will swooped in for another kiss, just a quick one. Then Will dropped his arms from around his waist, grabbed his hand and led them back inside. They could clean up in the morning. 

* * *

Once in Will’s room with the door securely shut, Derek leaned in and kissed him again and again, pinning Will against it with his body, his hands on Will’s hips and his thumbs slipping under his shirt. Will’s own hands settled on Derek’s back like that was where they were meant to be.

He wasn’t sure how much time passed. Maybe it was a minute, maybe it was an hour, maybe time had stopped entirely, but he knew that, when Will pulled back—as much as he could with the door at his back—it was way too soon.

He made a disappointed noise, but Will just sighed and worried his bottom lip between his teeth, which really wasn’t fair to Derek’s attention span. “The door’s getting kind of uncomfortable.”

Derek kissed him again quickly before reluctantly stepping away. “Maybe we should go to bed then,” he said, took both of Will’s hands into his, and pulled him backwards.

Will wrinkled his nose but went anyway. “We smell like woodsmoke.”

Derek shrugged. “Fits your whole lumberjack aesthetic. It’s kinda hot, not gonna lie.”

“I’d have to change the sheets tomorrow. That’s so much effort.”

Derek’s legs hit the back of the bed and he smirked at Will. “Maybe we should make it worth it then.” He let go of one of Will’s hands and it put it on his chest instead, trailing down slowly, reveling in the way Will shuddered under his touch.

“As tempting as that sounds,” Will said and picked Derek’s hand off his stomach. “I am not having sex in my childhood bedroom.”

Derek laughed. “Fine, let’s shower.” He kissed Will again, lingering a little longer, grabbed his sleep pants and the first white shirt he spotted, and disappeared into the bathroom first.

It turned out that the white shirt he snagged wasn’t his Maine shirt but rather the Samwell Men’s Hockey shirt with Will’s twenty-four on the back that Will had worn to sleep the night before. He pulled it on, delighted by the lingering smell, and quickly decided that he was definitely going to raid Will’s closet at the Haus regularly once they were back.

He found Will already leaning against the doorframe in the hallway. Will’s gaze dropped to his chest, then back up to his eyes. “That shirt looks good on you.”

“Thanks. It has the number of this guy I’m into on the back too,” Derek said. He let his eyes wander to Will’s lips briefly, then went past him, a grin growing when he felt Will look at his back as he walked. “You should take a shower.”

With Will gone, Derek settled into his usual spot on the bed close to the wall, the night on replay in his head. His stomach swooped pleasantly every time he got to the point where Will told him he  _ liked  _ him.

“What’re you grinning about?” Will asked suddenly as he stood in front of the bed. Derek hadn’t even noticed him get back. What he did notice, though, was Will wearing his Maine shirt.

“So you do like the shirt! I knew it,” he said triumphantly as Will climbed into bed and turned off the light on the nightstand.

He settled in, facing Derek and intertwining their legs, and scoffed. “No, it’s horrible, but  _ someone  _ took my sleep shirt.” Derek leaned over to kiss him anyway.

“I still can’t believe this is real,” Will whispered against his lips. “That you want me.”

“Guess I have to try harder then,” Derek said, throwing his arm around Will’s waist and slipping his hand back under his shirt. He slowly traced his fingers over the warm skin and felt goosebumps rise as he leaned back in for another kiss, and another. All Derek really wanted to do was kiss Will and never stop, but he eventually forced himself to pull away with a sigh. “Chowder deserves a huge apology from me.”

“From you?” Will asked, incredulous. “I called him so much since you came here.”

“You did? Was that the phone call last Friday? Before the whole thing on the deck?”

Derek heard rather than saw Will nod, rustling the pillow. “I was freaking out, bro.”

“Don’t call me bro after we just made out,” Derek laughed, quiet and breathy.

“Sorry. What, uh, what should I call you then?”

“How do you feel about,” Derek started and swallowed, suddenly nervous all over again, “about boyfriend?”

“I’d like that,” Will whispered and kissed him again.

“We should call Chowder and Farmer tomorrow,” Derek suggested. “I kinda wanna introduce them to my hot boyfriend.”

“Oh yeah?” Will scooted impossibly closer to him. “That’s exactly what I wanted to do,” he said against Derek’s lips.

“Just for the record,” Derek said when he managed to pull away long enough, fingers still trailing up and down Will’s back, “the thing on the deck freaked me the hell out too. Poor Chowder.”

“I thought I was being so obvious, though. With inviting you up here, taking you to the art museum, the whole pizza thing, everything. And then all the things Charlie said. It was getting frustrating.”

“Well, I guess I need things spelled out for me sometimes,” Derek grinned.

Will hummed. “Let me spell it out for you, then. I like you, like, a lot. And I really wanna date you.”

“Good. Because I like you a lot too.” Derek yawned.

Will kissed him one last time. “Night, Nursey.”

Derek hardly got a reply out before he was asleep, wrapped up in his boyfriend.

* * *

The next morning, Derek woke with Will’s back against his chest, his face against the nape of Will’s neck. He couldn’t help but press a soft kiss there.

“Mornin’,” Will said, sounding a lot more awake than Derek felt, but his voice was still so raspy it tugged at Derek’s stomach.

Will turned around and kissed him, and Derek only reluctantly pulled back, but the sight in front of him was worth it. Will was still all soft edges from sleep, pillow creases on his cheek. “I thought you looked unfairly good in riding pants, but I think I prefer to see you in my shirts in the morning.”

Will’s small smile made his stomach swoop. “Same here.”

“But I haven’t even worn—”

“Shut up, you know what I mean,” Will grumbled and swiftly swung his leg over Derek’s hips to straddle him. Derek’s hands immediately held onto his glorious thighs, reveling in Will’s weight on top of him. This really was something he wouldn’t mind getting used to. 

Will leaned down, both of his elbows on either side of Derek’s face and his back arched, and kissed him again, and again, and again.

When Will sat back up, Derek just looked at him, taking in the way his breaths were coming in quicker than before, cheeks flushed and eyes dark. “That was fun. Despite the morning breath,” Derek said eventually, a smile firmly in place.

Will grinned and stretched his arms over his head. Derek was sure he knew exactly what he was doing. “Yeah? Wanna do it again?”

_“ Please." _Derek really didn’t have it in him to feel ashamed for how eager he sounded.

Will was halfway back down when his phone pinged twice on the nightstand. With a sigh, he climbed off Derek and moved to get it.

“Can’t that wait?”

“Could be important,” Will shrugged and unlocked his phone.

“More important than kissing your  _ boyfriend? _ ”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Will sighed and Derek could clearly hear the eye roll in his voice.

“It’s my uncle,” Will said as he read the text. “He gave me my last week off. Apparently he doesn’t need my help anymore.”

“Convenient,” Derek hummed, pleased, and slipped his hand underneath Will’s shirt, sprawling it out against his stomach. “I know what we could do with that extra week.”

Will caught his hand before he could reach up any further and linked their fingers together. “Not in my childhood bedroom, Nurse, what the  _ fuck." _

“Interesting choice of emphasis there,” Derek grinned against his shoulder, and Will huffed. “I meant we could stay in bed all week and chill, get your head out of the gutter, _Billy."_ Then his phone on the nightstand vibrated several times, almost threatening to fall off. “Can you pass me my phone, please? And while you do that, how do you feel about replacing the bunk beds at the Haus? I think I could get used to sharing a bed with you.”

Will grabbed the phone, breaking their contact, and passed it to Derek over his shoulder as he hummed. “We started dating last night and you already wanna move in together.”

“Oh, fuck you, we already live together, asshole,” Derek threw back as he unlocked his phone and opened the messages.

Will laughed. “Sure, though. Wanna go to Ikea when we’re back?”

“Hell yeah, I do,” Derek said as he skimmed the messages from his moms and then tapped on the  _ boy problem _ group chat “It’ll be part of your birthday present.”

“Fuck no,” Will protested sternly. “I’ll pay half.”

“In a sense, it’s going to be a gift to me too,” Derek smirked.

“You _suck,"_ Will rolled his eyes but blushed anyway.

“Dex! Not in your childhood bedroom!” Derek gasped and Will pushed him.

Chowder and Farmer were demanding updates with increased intensity and frequency. Derek made a face at his screen as he said, “We really should call Chowder now, he’s been blowing up the group chat.”

Will raised his eyebrows in surprise. “You guys have a group chat? Without me?” Then, when realization hit, he laughed out loud. “Wait, you  _ made  _ a group chat for this?”

“I didn’t,” Derek defended, “I just desperately called Chowder one morning, and then he made it.” He tapped on the video call button and handed the phone to Will.

“Why can’t you hold it?” Will complained, but took it anyway and held it up. Derek made a mental note to teach Will about the power of good angles later. 

“Because I wanna hold my boyfriend,” he said and pressed a soft kiss to the side of Will’s neck. Before he could pull away, Chowder picked up.

The exasperated  _ finally  _ he and Farmer let out in lieu of a greeting made Derek smile against Will’s skin.

* * *

After the call ended, it took both of them another half an hour to find the motivation to get up and leave the bed and each other’s arms, but when they finally strolled into the kitchen still in each other’s shirts and joined hands, Charlie offered each of them a fist bump and a grin. Derek laughed out loud as Will went to pour them both a cup of coffee, the tips of his ears turning red in record time.

Derek decided that this summer was his favorite one by far.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! i hope you had a fraction of the fun i had playing all those dumb games again and imagining dex riding horses with Skill and nursey being utterly unprepared and gay about it 
> 
> are they completely out of shape after this summer? absolutely. f
> 
> (please don't hate me for the potentially inaccurate portrayal of pizza making)
> 
> EDIT: find me on my [omgcp sideblog](https://hashtagdex.tumblr.com) on tumblr now!


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